


Praxis

by kore_rising



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:03:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kore_rising/pseuds/kore_rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p><span class="small">Rating: NC-17 for sex and neuroscience gone wonky<br/>Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur<br/>Notes/Warnings: For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=23004413#t23004413">this</a> prompt at<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/"><b>inception_kink</b></a> :  An accident with the PASIV or some chemical of Yusuf's leaves them able  to read each others thoughts and feel each others emotions. They literally have no secrets from each other any more. But it also means  they have fucking incredible feedback loop sensations when they make love.</span></p><p><em><br/>This is a thought. *This is telepathy.*<br/></em></p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: NC-17 for sex and neuroscience gone wonky  
> Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur  
> Notes/Warnings: For [this](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=23004413#t23004413) prompt at[](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/profile)[ **inception_kink**](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/) : An accident with the PASIV or some chemical of Yusuf's leaves them able to read each others thoughts and feel each others emotions. They literally have no secrets from each other any more. But it also means they have fucking incredible feedback loop sensations when they make love.
> 
>  _  
> This is a thought. *This is telepathy.*  
> _

_"Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of man: theoria (contemplation), poiesis (creation) and praxis (application)...In one of her active forms the Greek goddess of Love Aphrodite was referred to as **Aphrodite Praxis** (the goddess of considered, enacted and realised  desire.)" - An Introduction to Aristotle's Teachings_

Consider the world for a moment. Look down from on high and what do you see? A blue green marble floating in the infinite star spattered darkness? Do you see home? Or are you looking down, looking for the signs of life? For people, the faces you know and love, your ones in six and a half billion? They say if you took away the world and just left the electricity you would see the most beautiful, intricate filigree sphere hanging in space. But what if you took away the world and just left the people, all those tiny flickering moth souls, candle flames in the wind of time, what would you see? I suppose what I'm asking is this: would you see the ways we are divided or the ways we are united? Would you feel hopeless in the face of our rage, bigotry and destruction, or would you see the love, compassion and creativity? Or would you look down and say "Look how small, how lonely, how separate we are."

\---  
It begins, as so many things do for them, in a dream.

They were running a routine check on the progress of a level, a straight forward enough exercise that they'd done many times before. The setting was a library, designed for a mark with a hugely respected academic career but also a suspected plagiarist. Ariadne had built it from white marble, a cool, clean edifice with Grecian pretensions. Inside dark wood shelves, the smell of dust, polish and bone dry paper, brass reading lamps on the desks and leather chairs, like something from a murder mystery novel or a gentleman' club. Arthur prowled the room around her, looking at the configuration of the bookcases the room held, a deliberate maze within the bigger maze of this level. She had half an eye on him as she worked, watching him sliding a finger down the spine of one of the leather bound volumes, nodding his head as he noted the exits or turning to watch her with his usual faint smile when he perhaps thought her too absorbed to notice. 

She was tweaking the windows, which annoyingly were first too big then too ornate, stubbornly refusing to fix in her intended design. On top of that the usually subtle flick, flick of matter rearranging seemed unusually difficult, not the easy process she had trained herself into.  
They were almost perfect when she saw the first sign, a faint smearing around the lines of the frame as she tried to set them perfectly. An infinitesimal pause in the process, like a photograph where the camera shutter has jammed open, leaving the outlines indistinct. Ariadne frowned and tried again, only to see that not only did the smear linger longer but that it seemed to be more pronounced. "That can't be right." She whispered to herself, curiosity twisting her face. She tapped the reading desk she was sitting on with her fingers; it felt solid, reassuring and right. She got up and circled it cautiously, then tried to alter it, forcing the change as hard as she could, even though she knew she shouldn't. And to her horror, instead of the smooth transition from what she had to what she intended, the table warped, bending then groaning into shape, the after image of it stuttering behind like a imprecise shadow.

Her mouth dropped in astonishment, his name starting on her lips. But before she could make a sound the noise started, growing rapidly into a din that was at the same time a feeling, a vibration running from her heels to her crown with ear bleeding intensity. It felt like the high pitched, painful shrill of a finger running around the edge of a wine glass magnifying ten, then a hundred, then a thousand times, the pain of it unbearable.

She realised she was running long after she was in motion, her heart rapid with panic, her mind yelling his name even though her voice couldn't be heard over the tactile and aural assault. She saw him swing round towards her, one arm flung forwards to reach her, the other grabbing towards his gun just as the world around them thickened like molasses, freezing them solid. No matter what she tried she couldn't  move; not even her eyeballs could shift from Arthur's face and stop her from seeing that he, of all people, was afraid. His eyes were stuck wide and his mouth slightly agape as he struggled endlessly towards her, to reach his Glock, to make a word come out of his mouth. Inside her head Ariadne's thoughts slurred into a tight, terrified loop: _killmeIhavetowakeupkillmeIhavetowakeupkillmeIhavetowakeup_ as the sound took on two new, horrifying tones, a deafening human like scream and an animal roar of hellish fury.

 As the library around them ,as they even, blurred like paint under running water. It all melted like hot wax, dripping into coloured puddles of dream stuff before washing them down with it into engulfing darkness.

\---  
She's falling, that's the next thing she knows, her brain slopping inside her skull like pudding as she hit a hard surface. Her right arm dragged behind her, a sharp pain splintering from the wrist as she went down, something pulling and then tearing across the skin. Her eyes couldn't focus, they refused to make sense of the world she was seeing as she pressed her hands into the cold material under her. She rolled over, kicking her feet and dragging her knees up as she tried to kneel. Her ears were buzzing and aching as if she was tuned to static on the radio, her skin prickling and shivering in a wash of hot and cold.

She struggled upright, but when she lifted her head everything tipped, spun crazily in a kaleidoscope of nausea and  suddenly she was hunched forward, throwing up over and over again. Someone in the background of the chaos of her perceptions was shouting, then there were running feet, someone talking to her, pulling back her hair as she kept vomiting, her throat on fire. They took hold of her around her waist and she was too tired, too weak to struggle as they propped her over what she thought might be a bucket ( _a window? Cobb?_ ) as she's ill. _Is this real?_ Her thoughts skittered like ball bearings in a pinball machine. _Where am I? Where's Arthur?_ Inside her head she knows the things she's seeing have names ( _chair, window, floor, workshop, Eames, Yusuf_ , _Cobb_ ) but they refuse to stick to the world in front of her. _Oh god, is this limbo? Am I dying up there and this is limbo? Where's Arthur?  
_  
She twisted in the hold that had her and groaned, pushing against it, "Arthur," she pleaded, her mouth and tongue raw, "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur." The voice speaks again, but it's nonsense to her. "Arthur," she repeated stupidly, "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur." They eventually responded by gently turning her head, cradling her skull. She blinked, and through the stupid mess of everything she saw him, clear against the wreck in her vision, his body folded against something ( _chair? Yusuf?_ _Sandwich?_ ) like an empty dead shell, limp and drained. The scream in her head rose again,  _No, no, no, no, no!_ Her hands flailing outwards uselessly as the grip on her tightened, the voice tried to speak to her again, but it was no good. She started to lunge forward and just as she did so, the panic and desperation roiling in a storm inside her, her consciousness shut off as neatly as someone switching off a light.

\---

When she woke again she could hear Cobb talking softly, his voice bleeding into her ears mid sentence. "...in the recovery position." He's telling someone. "Yes, I see." He said after a pause. "Tomorrow then."

Her eyes opened gradually, wary of the nightmare they saw last time. She realised slowly that she was lying on her side on one of the lawn chairs, flattened out to make a bed, with her hand cushioning her head and a blanket covering her. The workshop was dim aside from the muted light of the task lamps on the desks around her, casting long shadows across the floor. She started to move her head when she heard a chair creak and then Eames' voice in a whisper. "How are you feeling?"

Her voice came out rough and low, her throat sore. "I was sick."  
"Yes, you were." He knelt down in her line of vision and she could make out his frown in the gloom. "You were very, very sick. Mostly on the floor and into a bin, but also on me."  
"Sorry." She managed.  
"I'll live. What's a bit of puke between friends, eh?" He smiled at her slightly. "Do you remember what happened down there?"  
"The library. Melted." She frowned,  "Noise, huge noise, vibration. Couldn't move." The panic bit down on her mind suddenly, and she started to struggle upright. "Arthur, where's...?"  
"Calm down, it's alright." His hands pressed against her shoulders, keeping her prone. "Check your totem. Can you get to it?" She fumbled into her hip pocket, dragging the golden bishop out from under the blanket. Eames took her wrist, guided her hand to the floor, then let go so she could topple the piece. It fell with a careful thunk and stayed in place: Reality.

"Arthur is conscious." He continued. "I'd be the first to say that he's less annoying passed out, but it was a relief to have him back with us, pain in the arse and all. He wasn't as spectacularly ill as you were, although I suspect you'll be happy to learn he was sick on me too. He was more coherent than you when he first came up, but even so he was talking some utter nonsense about the dream dissolving. Then he pretty much did what you did when I was trying to hold you over the bin. He vomited everywhere, said your name a hundred times over, then took one look at you and flaked out again. He woke up about an hour ago and is currently in Cobb's hotel suite with instructions to rest, which he's undoubtedly ignoring. We're going to take you there too in a bit so Yusuf can keep an eye on you both. We didn't want to move you until you were awake, just in case."

"What happened to us?"  
"At the moment Yusuf thinks that one of the compounds used in the somnacin blend caused some kind of adverse reaction. He also feels that might account for the way the dream fell apart and for the symptoms it caused afterwards."  
"Chaotic." She frowned, again rubbing her face in the memory. "Nothing made sense."  
"Arthur said: Noise, blurred vision, nausea, vibrations, the whole house of horror. Except that he said he could see you perfectly clearly."  
"Me too."  
"Probably because you were both having the same reaction. Still, it doesn't seem that there's any permanent damage.  Now, do you think you can sit up if we give you a hand?"  
She nodded gingerly.  
"OK, hold on. Cobb?" He called softly, "Cobb? Ariadne's awake."

Quiet footsteps came across the workshop, then the extractor was kneeling by her makeshift pallet. "How are you?" His face was deep etched with concern as he looked at her.  
"OK, I think. For someone who had a bad somnacin trip, anyway." She managed a small smile she hoped was reassuring.  
"You were pretty ill. Mind you, so was Arthur. But you're both doing a lot better now." He took her hand and squeezed it gently.  
"Would you like to try getting up? Then we can take you to my hotel and Yusuf can look after you tonight, just in case."

"What do you say, hmm?" Eames jollity sounded slightly forced, "I'm staying too. It'll be like a sleep over, all of us together. We can watch bad films and drink cocoa. Just don't expect me to plait Arthur's hair." Her laugh made him smile. "Excellent, if you're giggling you must be doing better. Come on then, lets get you out of here."

\---

 ** _She dreams:_**  
The desert is cold, cold enough to see her breath smoking from her mouth when she breathes. The sky is dark blue and prickled with stars. The sand glows white under the moon and the air tastes of dust. Suddenly to her left there is a whistle and fire blooms out of the dark, red, orange, white and yellow, a chrysanthemum of exploding liquid and gas. Someone shouts, she hisses a word in return and then there is a stutter of automatic fire. There's a rifle in her hands, she's squinting across the plain through the gloopy green of her night vision sight, aiming, firing, aiming, firing, her belly pressed into the gritty floor. Each bullet sends out a pop of white light as it goes. She reloads and carries on, her mission her single thought, as next to her she hears someone groan "I'm hit. Help me, Arthur, I'm..."

 ** _He dreams:_**  
The sun is sparkling on the waves as he stands on the pier. The sea is cold steel blue and the sky shiny pale. He can smell the wind, damp and ozone sharp, as it hits him in the face, whipping his hair back, and he can see it filling the sails of the boats sliding in and out of the harbour. The tears have long since dried on his cheeks, leaving his skin tight and his nose snotty. He's sad, so sad, as if he's never going to feel anything else, ever again. His mother stands next to him and eventually takes his much smaller hand in hers. "Come on, sweetie. We have to go home now." He digs his heels in, he wants to stay looking at the sea forever. It's where grandma and grandpa are now. He feels the dust on his mother's hand from the ashes, he feels the tears starting all over again, he looks down and sees his dark velvet dress fluttering in the breeze and he hears his mother's voice break as she picks him up to cuddle him safe, burying her face in his curls. "Oh Ariadne, I miss them too."  
   
~*~

Ariadne jumped awake, sputtering as if she was coming up from under water. Yusuf was immediately leaning over her, one hand taking her pulse, the other tilting her head up to check her pupils. "Gently now." He said, letting go. "You had a quiet night?"  
"I was dreaming." She mumbled, "I was in the desert." She propped herself up, ignoring the dull ache in her head, and looked over to the other bed in the room, rumpled and slept in but empty. "He's taking a shower." Yusuf answered her unspoken question. Arthur had been asleep when Eames and Cobb had brought her to the suite, so Eames sleep over plans had died a fairly rapid death; no team pillow fights or spin the bottle, he had sighed.

"He's much better this morning," the chemist continued, "as it seems are you. Do you feel alright?"  
"I have a headache and my skin feels a little...prickly."  
"Better than yesterday?" She nodded.  
"You're both doing about the same then. He said he dreamt last night too, but I would expect that after what you experienced." Yusuf made some notes, then peered at her over his glasses. "Now, until the shower is free I'd expect you'd like some food, yes?"  
"I'd love some espresso." She yawned into her hand. "My brain feels at half mast. And some toast."  
"Luckily that's just what Arthur asked for and there's plenty left." He smiled, full of his usual cheer. "When you're ready it's in main room." He nodded to her then left, carefully shutting the door behind him.

Ariadne stayed sat in the bed for a moment, pulling her knees up under her chin and hugging them tightly. The dream was still clinging to her mind like a handful of cobwebs. She shut her eyes, willed herself to remember and it came, a strange double echo of images:

I was in the desert.  
                                  _I was on the pier_.

It was night time.  
                               _The sun was shining_.

There was an explosion.  
                                            _I could see the boats_.

I was shooting.   
                            _My mom was holding my hand_.

He was hit, bleeding out next to me.  
                                                         _Grandma and Grandpa were scattered over the sea._

He said my name,  
                                 _She said my name,_

he called me...  
                         _she called me..._

...Arthur.  
             ... _Ariadne_.

She kicked back the sheets, her feet skidding on the floor as she ran to the door. Down the hall she heard a door bang open, and the spat of wet feet coming towards her. She grabbed the handle, yanked the door back and there was Arthur, a towel wrapped around his waist, dripping with water, gazing at her like he'd never seen her before, shock and wonder all at once.

"You were in Iraq. Your commanding officer died from a gunshot wound while he was next to you." The words fell off her tongue, even as he said  
"Your mother's parents. You scattered their ashes in the sea off Maine when you were six years old. You were heartbroken."

Then they were silent, brown eyes staring into each other in horror and amazement. The unspoken questions loud between them as they stood there, unable to say anything more.

\---

Cobb sat down on the couch opposite them both. His demeanour was business like and his face hard. He turned to Ariadne first.  
"Last night you dreamt you were Arthur, is that what you're saying?"  
"Yes."  
"And you think you dreamed you were Ariadne?" He looked at Arthur.  
"Yes."

"Fine, I can fix this straight away." He turned back to Ariadne. "Tell me about the first time I met Arthur. In as much detail as you can."  
She looked at him wide eyed, then at Arthur. "How can I possibly...?"  
"If you think you're sharing each other's memories this would seem to be a good test. Tell me, Ariadne."

She looked at him, her eyes half closing, "It was...Mal. She knew me first. Oh, she was so lovely, do you remember?" She smiled at Cobb, who didn't react "She had been dating you for about a four months and she said I should meet you. We went to the Cafe Reland. I met you there, the two of you sitting outside in the spring sunshine. She was wearing that green silk dress that always made her eyes bluer than forget me knots, her skin like milk. When we shook hands she laughed and said "You're so American!" You told me to call you Dom. We drank coffee and you told me about how you'd been studying with her father, how you'd started using the PASIV and how Mal said I'd used it when I was in Special Ops, but now I was a free man did I want to try something a little more creative..."

"Stop!" Arthur barked, "That's enough!" His face was tight.  
"Yes, I think that's enough." Cobb switched his gaze to the point man. "Now, Arthur. Tell me about how I met Ariadne."  
"No."  
"Arthur, this is about establishing parameters. If it only works one way we need to know. Tell me."

Arthur gritted his teeth, then started to spit the words out. "I was coming down the stairs from my lecture on the built environment. I was thinking about coffee and something to eat when I heard Professor Miles calling to me. I've always liked Professor Miles because he encourages me to think beyond the limits of a task. You were standing next to him and he said you had a job for me. I thought he meant a placement, which would be a huge deal for me, then you said not exactly and offered to buy me something to drink. I thought you didn't look like any architect I'd met before, you seemed too casual and offhand, not talking about the last thing you designed or built. We went up to the library balcony and you asked me to draw a maze. I kept screwing it up, and I wanted to smack you when you told me I would have to do better. I knew that. Then I remembered Professor Miles saying I should go beyond the obvious, and I drew the labyrinth, a huge spiral, and you said..."

"OK, that'll do." He spun his top idly on the coffee table, watching it fall before he carried on. "You both used the first person, did you notice? "She said **_I_** should meet you." " _ **I**_ was thinking about coffee and something to eat." "She knew **_me_** first." "You asked _**me**_ to draw a maze.""He looked at them both, their posture rigid and their eyes looking anywhere but at each other. "It doesn't seem to require any more effort than recalling one of your own memories. Am I right?"  
Ariadne nodded "It felt like my own."  
Arthur stayed silent, his nod a short chop of his head.  
"Yusuf, what are you thinking? Have you heard of anything like this before?"

The chemist cleared his throat nervously. "Only rumours. I've never seen it first hand."  
"Do you know of anyone who could help us?"  
"There's a neuroscientist, he worked on some of the original shared dreaming projects and now he's freelance," Yusuf paused, letting to word sink in, "he'll need more data before he'll risk coming in though."  
"What kind of data?" Arthur snapped.  
Yusuf shook his head and shrugged. "What the extent of the sharing is. If you're able to share learned abilities, sensory stimuli, thoughts or simply particular recollections."  
"Sorry," Ariadne's expression was incredulous. "We could share thoughts? Are you talking about telepathy?"  
"It's been rumoured..."

"Alright, we'll talk about the rumours another time. Yusuf, what data can we gather to encourage the doctor to think this is worth his time and our money?" Cobb folded his arms and regarded him with serious intensity.  
"There are some tests I can try. Nothing invasive!" He held a hand up to Arthur, "Just some standard psi ability ones. And we can try a few things in a single level dream, if you're comfortable with that?"  
"The PASIV they used has been purged?"  
Yusuf nodded. "Twice, to be certain. None of the somnacin blend they used is in it and I've locked the rest of the batch away."  
"Good. We'll start tomorrow then. Are you OK with that?"  
Ariadne muttered "Yes." Next to her she felt the tension radiating off Arthur as he bit off a single "OK." Then, equally tersely, "Can I go?"  
Cobb stared at him for a long moment, but eventually sighed "Sure. See you tomorrow." They regarded each other silently, then Arthur snatched his coat from the back of the couch. The door banged shut a minute later.

"He's embarrassed." Ariadne heard herself saying suddenly, "He loved Mal like a sister. He adored her. He thought she was beautiful. And he thought he had hidden it from you so well, until now."  
Dom's answering smile was small and sympathetic. "You know that too, do you?"  
"He remembers her," and she felt herself choking on the words, "She shines. Everything, all the good in her, all the intelligence, all the laughter, it pours out of her; Oh God!" She put her hands over her face, trying to blank out Arthur's recollections.  
The older man was next to her in an instant, pulling her into a hug. "Hush now, Ariadne. It's OK. Where's he gone? Can you tell?"  
"The river, I think. The Pont Neuf? In his memory she was on the bridge." She wiped at her face, the tears of a grief not her own marring her cheeks.  
"Alright. I'll go and talk to him in a while. It's alright." He kept rocking her gently, as if she were no older than Philipa or James and needed a nightmare chasing away.

But it isn't alright, she wants to scream back. How can living flesh, her own self, ever match up to the perfected beauty of death? How can she compete with someone who shines like an angel from the memory of the man whom she likes, whom she wants; whom she used to wish she knew better and now, it seems, she has no choice but to, even if that means finding she isn't in his memories at all.

\---  
   
 ** _He dreams_ :**  
He and Cobb are standing in a ruined city. The light on the grey concrete is bright, too bright, and from the corner of his eye he can see James and Philipa, bent over something on the ground. Their laughter echoes up the steep sides of the buildings, bouncing madly across the empty plaza and through the quiet streets. He's wet, dripping wet, fresh from the sea and his hair is hanging in his face. "There's something you need to know," Cobb is saying to him, "about me, about inception." Their footsteps are too loud as they squelch through the maze of blank walls. "I know it works because she was the first person I ever did it to. I told her that her world wasn't real and she died because of it. Now she haunts me with the knowledge and I can never be free. I can't build. I can't go home. I'm here, always. And now I've brought you here too, Ariadne."

 ** _She dreams_ :**  
She's standing in an airport departure lounge. LAX, a swiftly moving bustle of lives interchanging. Cobb is in front of her, his face swollen red with weeping, looking about a hundred years old. He smells of airplane food and sweat. "I couldn't stop her," he whispers, his voice barely audible over the chatter around them. "I tried everything. I tried to talk her down. I tried to remind her about the kids. But she..." his face crumbles, "She wouldn't listen. She couldn't hear me any more." She feels like she's swallowed ice, every part of her frozen as she reaches out to comfort the other man, pulling him into a rough embrace. "Oh god," she hears him cry into her shoulder, "What am I going to do without her, Arthur?"

\---

The alarm buzzed and he jolted upright, sweat pouring off him: _Ariadne_?

The radio kicked on, a blare of music hitting her ears as she sat up in shock: _Arthur_?

~*~

"This test," Yusuf sat down in front of him in his work space in the workshop, "is to determine if you and Ariadne can see something that the other of you is looking at. It's a little crude, but it's fairly reliable." He shuffled a deck of cards that were sat on the table in front of him. "When I hold up the card I want you to say aloud what you see. We'll pause for a second then continue until we've used all the cards. I'll note down your responses and then we'll move on. Agreed?"  
Arthur knotted his fingers together on the desk top in front of him.  
"Do I have a choice?"  
"Yes. You can chose not to do this and remain in blissful ignorance. Is that what you would prefer?" Yusuf regarded him over the top of his glasses.  
"No."  
"Then let us begin." He picked up the first card and turned it face out.

-

Ariadne stared at Eames. "A star." She said firmly.  
"Good." He wrote something on his pad. "Lovely. Now, your turn. All you have to do is look at the card and say what you see, OK?"  
She nodded. "Alright then, here we go."

-

Arthur frowned "It's a cross." Yusuf scribbled a note.  
"That's the last one. OK, we're going to try something else now, if you're alright to continue? You're not tired?"  
"No, lets get on with it."

Yusuf kept his face carefully neutral. "Come with me." He stood up and crossed the room to a large table that had been covered with a white drop cloth, which he carefully pulled away. "These are the makings of a model of a level Ariadne is building for our latest job. It's the first, the one she's designed for me to dream. All you have to do is try and recreate it as you think it is."  
"That's all?"  
"Yes. She hasn't shown it to you yet, so it would seem to be a fair test. Take as long as you need."

Arthur stared at the pasteboard, the glue gun, the steel ruler and the exacto knife lying neatly in front of him. "All I have to do, huh? Right." He picked up the base board and narrowed his eyes.

-

Eames dropped the last card on the pile. "Excellent. Now, are you OK to carry on?"  
Ariadne shrugged. "I'm OK."  
"Sure?"  
"Yeah, let me at it."   
"Superb. Come over here."

He got up from the desk they had been using and led her over to a smaller, covered table. He whipped the white sheet off it with a flourish "Ta da!"  
She saw in front of her a familiar stainless steel case, empty, and with it a selection of oddly shaped pieces, some metal, some plastic, some even apparently fabric. "What is this?"  
"It's a PASIV. In bits, I grant you, but it's still a PASIV. All you have to do is put it together again."  
"I've never seen half this stuff."  
"But Arthur has. What we're attempting to establish is if you can borrow each others skills as well as your memories. Since learned skills are partly reliant on memory recall it seems like an easy way to find out."  
She looked down at the ranks of filters, tubes, valves and nozzles spread out in front of her. "Am I against the clock?"  
"Nope," Eames smiled, sitting down next to her, "take as long as you need."  
"Fine. OK." Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Let me see..."

-

Arthur stood next to Cobb in a blank, featureless space. It had ground under his feet and a pale blue sky, but aside from that it was empty.  
"This dream is intended for us to gauge the degree you can use Ariadne's ability to build."  
"I already can build. You know that." He turned to look at Cobb.  
"You can, but you're not and nor have you ever been an architect. If you can manipulate the dream space in the same way she can, to the same level of complexity she can, then we'll know what degree of...interdependence you're experiencing."  
"So, what?"  
"That's up to you. Build a maze. See what you can do."  
Arthur closed his eyes and felt the dream start to shift around him.

-

"This dream," Eames lounged against the wall of the dojo, "is so we can see if you can do any of the things Arthur can in a dream space."  
"Like what?" Ariadne looked around the calm room, with its ivory walls, tatami and paper screens.  
"Basically, if you can fight off projections. Hand to hand combat to start with. Then we'll move on to the fun stuff."  
"The fun stuff?"  
"Guns, explosives, swords..."  
"Swords?"  
"Mean hand with a rapier is our Arthur. Ready?"  
"I..."  
"Don't think too hard, just do it. I'm here if it gets out of hand, OK?"  
Ariadne swallowed, then raised her fists into what she hoped was a defensive position. "OK. Bring it on."

-

"This is the last thing we're going to do today. It's a touch stimulus test. I'm going to stick you lightly with a needle then you're going to tell me where you feel it. Then we'll switch over and you'll tell me where Ariadne feels the needle. OK?"  
"If I have to." Arthur's expression was wary.  
"It won't be more than a sting. Close your eyes."  
"I've heard that before. Ow!" He snatched his right hand away from Yusuf, his eyes opening is shock. "You could have warned me!" He snapped.  
"Where did you feel it?"  
"My right ring finger. Ouch. Fuck..." Arthur sucked the hurt digit, trying to make it stop throbbing.  
Yusuf's expression was far too cheery as he brandished the point in his hand. "OK, next one."

-

"Left knee cap." Ariadne sighed. "He hates it. It's making him furious."  
"Oh really?" Eames grinned to himself. "Something to remember there, I feel. Alrighty then, your turn. All you have to do is tell me where I'm jabbing you with this here needle." He held it up so it glinted wickedly in the light.  
"You're going to jab me?" Her face twisted in discomfort.  
"No, I'll be gentle. Close your eyes. Ready?"  
"Uh huh." She winced and hissed as it spiked her. "Right ear lobe. Owww" The noise came through gritted teeth.  
"You're doing fine. Here we go, next one."

-

"Middle of the right palm. Shit, it hurts. She's trying to pretend it doesn't, but it's getting to her. She's tired." Arthur put his hand over his eyes and rubbed the closed lids.  
"Well, I think we can say we're all done." Yusuf took off his glasses, letting them fall onto his chest. "Go home, eat and rest. We'll talk in the morning. You've had a long day."

He watched the younger man nod, get up stiffly, pull on his jacket and then bid him a terse goodnight.

-

"He's tired." Ariadne yawned hugely and slumped in her chair.

"He's not the only one, I think." Eames added a final note to the pile in front of him. "Go on, go home. We're finished here." He rubbed her arm as she regarded him with her huge brown eyes.  
"Eames," she said softly, "I'm scared. What's happened to us?"  
"I know you are, sweetheart. But you're not ill, either of you. You're not screaming bonkers and your brains aren't jelly. This is just...unusual. Get some food and some sleep. You'll feel better for it, I promise. Go on."

She stood up, stretched hugely then smiled. "G'night Eames. See you tomorrow. Thank you."  
"Any time, Ariadne."  Her footsteps dwindled as she crossed the floor, the door swinging behind her in a sigh of air.

-

"Well," Cobb sipped his coffee and looked over at Yusuf, " what can you tell us?"

"They scored a hundred percent on the Zener and the stimuli tests, both sending and receiving. Which, I have to say, is unheard of in a normal psi testing environment. His model is virtually indistinguishable from hers, aside from a few odd details such as some slightly wobbly lines, don't you agree?" Cobb nodded in response. "How did he do in the dream?"

"He was good. No," Cobb corrected himself, "he was better than good. I've known Arthur a long time and he's never built anything like that before. It was...fiendish. The elaborations he employed were complicated, not just his normal closed loop and paradox designs. It was like he bent the world double, turned it inside out and then built the maze on the curves. He started with a conventional hedge maze, but as he went on it became a Classical temple, a forest then a cityscape. Each transition was seamless.I barely felt it happen." He let out a long breath before he carried on. "Eames, how did Ariadne do?"

The forger grinned proudly. "She kicked seven projections to their knees, broke two noses and a jaw as well as dislocating three shoulders with some distinctly un Ariadne like Judo inspired throws. She was fast and she was light, which would make up for her not being as strong as he is. But at one point she pulled a choke hold that made my eyes water."  
"Anything else?"  
"She's got his hand for firearms." Eames stretched. "We tried everything from a 4.4 mill up to a modified AR-15. Sure kill, virtually every time. And she can wire a small plastic explosive charge, disarm and reset it. I was going to try the whole sword bit, but we ran out of time. Shame really, I can see her with a rapier, you know."  
"And the PASIV?"  
"She fumbled for a bit, but once she got going it seemed to be smooth sailing. When it was set to start the diffusion pumps kicked in and the dummy liquid came through the leads, so I'd say she managed that too. I've brought it with me so you can see." He hefted the case up onto the desk, flipped the catches and let Yusuf bend over it with his practised eye.

"Well?" Cobb prodded the chemist.  
"It's..." he looked up, "it's exactly as it should be. It looks like it was done by someone with a great deal more experience than she has."  
"Let alone someone who was ten miles away from the person who she seems to have borrowed the experience from." Cobb added. "Was there anything else?"

"During the stimuli test he seemed to be receptive to her emotional state. He mentioned the pain was bothering her but that she was trying to contain it and struggling because she was tired."  
"Eames?"  
"That sounds right. Let me see, she mentioned something...Oh yes, she said he hated the needle test and that it was annoying him. No, hold on, it was making him furious, she said."  
"I'd say that was a fairly accurate assessment." Yusuf muttered.

Cobb looked at them both steadily, his face still and his voice calm. "Do we have enough to call on Dr. Hobbes yet?"  
Yusuf took in their notes, the model, the PASIV and nodded. "The sooner the better, I think."

\---

 ** _She dreams:_** _  
_She's sitting on the leather couch in the hotel lobby. It's busy with Fischer's projections. A woman in a coral pink dress and a pearl necklace. A man in a navy suit. A bell boy. She flicks her eyes over each figure, assessing their ability to oppose her. The woman's hair is long enough to grab and smash her face into her knee or a wall. The navy suited man is heavy set, his centre of gravity high, a single blow to the sternum followed by one to the chin would floor him. The bell boy is wiry and young, but lacking in muscle. His arm would twist back with little resistance. She can feel the wool of her pants under her hands and smell the rain pouring outside, but she forces herself to remain still, remain calm. The wrong move will bring them to her and too much is riding on this to let that happen. Next to her someone shifts nervously, clears their throat quietly and says "Why are they staring at us?" She turns her head and sees...  
 _  
Herself._ But not as she's used to. She looks like a woman, a creature made of softness and curves, not a girl dressing to hide her shape under formless layers. Her skin glows like a pearl, her hair is ebony and her lips are soft, inviting blush pink. She looks half worried, half exhilarated as she looks around the room, her delicate fingers curling into her knees. She looks beautiful even though her anxiety, and it's unsettling, sending an itch of want crawling up her spine that the projections must be sensing. "They're looking for the dreamer. For me." She hears herself reply, and the want blooms into a fully fledged urge that suddenly she loses control of.

"Quick, give me kiss." She turns to herself, eyes flickering rapidly over her face, leaning forward and then they're touching. Her mouth is warm, slightly sweet and tilting into hers, a firework of desire shoots through her at the contact and she presses forward gently, drinking it in. _Oh god, I'm kissing her. I'm kissing Ariadne. Oh god, this is good, this is wonderful, I...  
_ She moves back suddenly, her eyes scanning the room.

"They're still looking at us." She hears her own voice, jumpy and uneven. In her other body she leans back into the couch, knowing that a kiss like that, a tiny admission of emotion in such a fragile environment, has only made things worse.  
"Yeah, it was worth a shot." Inside her head she claps her palm to her face: _Where did that come from? **It was worth a shot?** Smooth, Arthur, you're so fucking smooth. You kiss the girl you've been thinking about 24/7 since she kicked Cobb's behind into a sling about his projection of Mal and that's the best you can do? _She turns back, a small smile on her face and a rose tint to her cheeks."We should get going." She says to herself, allowing a half smile in return as she gets up. _Did she like it too? Did she want it too? Could she? Could they?  
_  
 ** _He dreams:_** _  
_The shoes are vicious, tight, pointed and heeled like a weapon, making his feet uncomfortable. Through the thin covering of his stockings he can feel the embossed leather cushion pressing into his legs. He's sitting with his hands curled onto the fine wool of his skirt and his back ramrod straight, alert and tense in understanding the danger they might be in. But the lobby around him is perfect, just as he planned it and for a moment he can't help but feel a twinge of pride in his abilities. It's worked, it's actually worked. The world feels just as it should, plush and slick in one glance. He's done it, lived up to everything Professor Miles and every other teacher he's ever had believed of him.  
Its only when the man and the woman cross his line of vision, scowling furiously,  that he realises they're paying them far too much attention. He turns his head and sees others, faces blossoming like sunflowers turning to the sky. "Why are they staring at us?" He blurts, trying to be quiet and managing to fail miserably.

"They're looking for the dreamer. For me."

He turns his head and there he is, looking every inch the professional. He fits here, in his dark suit, crisp white shirt and dark tie, his handsome brunet looks, almost lounging in the cushions of the couch like a cat uncurled in the sun, even if his face is betraying some tension he can't suppress. His stomach tightens and his breath catches in his chest. His half smile is pulling at his lips and he looks...the word jumps out suddenly: _delicious_. He wants to reach out and stroke himself to see if he purrs, leans into his hand demanding more, then furiously stamps on that thought. Not here. Not now.

"Quick, give me a kiss."

His head turns with a snap, and he examines his face for a second. Is this a joke? A dare? A genuine distraction? But he's leaning towards himself, breathing in, eyes flickering closed and then...his mouth is softer than he imagined, his lips insistent enough to keep him kissing himself far longer than a mere distraction might require. He smells faintly of cedar and lemon and his mouth, when he presses in to it a little harder, gives slightly and tingles with mint. _We're kissing_ , the thought spirals drunkenly through him leaving comet tails of want in it's wake, _and it is, its delicious, addictive; it's not putting out the want ,it's blowing it into life with a hot roar, we have to stop, we have to..._

 __Just as suddenly it's over, his face moving away and he turns his head quickly  to hide the look on he knows he's wearing and burbles the first thing that comes into his head: "They're still looking at us."  
"Yeah, it was worth a shot." there's a beat, then "We should get going." He feels himself smile at that, turning towards himself with a flutter of lashes as if to say 'You stole a kiss? You could have just asked me.'

But inside he feels himself grab the phrase and tear it to shreds; _What the hell? What was worth a shot? You and me? A kiss? Do you even give a damn about me outside of this? Do you think I'm attractive enough to kiss when you're not trying to save your own ass? Because I? I think you are, I think so; Say something, Ariadne, don't just sit there- Could we ever..._

 _~*~  
_  
Arthur jerked awake as if he'd been thrown in a bath of ice water. "Ariadne!" He gasped, twisting in the sheets.He could feel his erection against his stomach, dragging his attention to his groin with furious urgency. He groaned and rolled over onto his back, letting his fingertips scrawl over his nipples and then down, over his stomach to the waistband of his pyjama pants. _That's it, Ariadne, he felt her hands ghost over him, that's it..._

Ariadne sat up, her skin tingling and warm with arousal. "Arthur?" She said to the quiet room, one hand rubbing her face, then sliding down her neck. She hesitated for a moment, letting her fingers graze the lace edge of her tank top, before she let herself cup her breast, feeling her nipple puckered and firm under her wandering fingers. "Oh, god..." She sighed, dropping back into the pillows. Both hands now, both breasts, squeezing and stroking then yanking her top away so she's naked to the waist.  
 _That's better. Oh yes, suck them Arthur, make me wet..._

 __ _His mouth lavished attention on her breasts as her hands took hold of him, a lazy stroke that ran carefully from the tip to the base._ Like that? _Her voice asks_. "Like that," he said aloud, taking hold of himself. "Like that, harder, Ariadne."

 _She's wrapped one hand around his cock and is stroking him harder, harder, feeling the length and the weight of him in her grasp._ "Like that", _he keeps saying,_ "like that, Ariadne" _._ She tears her panties down, kicking them free from her legs and sprawls over the bed, one hand on her breasts, the other rubbing slow circles over her clit. "I want to taste you," she murmurs, "I want to have you in my mouth."

 _She dips her head, her hair coiling on his stomach and he feels her enclose him with her lips, her tongue lapping the underside of his cock while he arches towards her._ "Oh god, that's good." _He gasps as she suckles at him, her breath hot on his abdomen._ His strokes get firmer, his thumb working over the head of his cock.

"I want to taste you too."He pants _and she lets him free of mouth, crawls up his body and straddles his shoulders. His hands cup her butt and pull her forwards onto his face, his tongue hitting her clit almost immediately in a series of rough laps. "_ Yes,"she hisses "More." _  
Two fingers slip inside her and start to pump in and out as she rides his mouth._ "I want you inside me," she gasps her fingers pressing down harder, "Make love to me, Arthur. I want you so badly."

"I want you too. God, I want you." _He rolls her off him and onto the bed, spreads her divinely lovely legs and lines his hips up to hers. The first thrust makes her press up into him, her mouth soft and urgent on his. He can feel himself starting to heat with the exertion, rocking in and out of her as she moans for him, because of this, squeezes tight around him._ He closes his hand around himself, pumping desperately.

 _He's inside her, hard and long, pushing in and pulling out in an incredible rhythm. She lets one hand stray down to her clit, she's so wet it coats her finger tips as she starts to stimulate herself. His mouth is on hers, his breath is hot on her face, his sweat salt under her tongue when she nips then drags her nails over his shoulder._ "Harder, Arthur." She presses down on herself, the tingle of arousal a fever under her skin. "Harder," she gasps, "Harder, Arthur. I want to feel you come." _His hips thrust into hers, crushing her fingers against herself as_ she rubs, tighter and tighter, wetter and wetter, harder and harder.

"I want to feel you come too. Come, Ariadne, come for me." His voice is raw, _desperate in her ear and he drops his head to kiss then suck his mark onto her neck._ His fist clamped around himself, the throb of blood too much, too much, 

"I'm coming, Arthur, I'm..." the words get lost _in his skin_ , in her pillows as she spasms desperately around her fingers, her hair knotting as she twists her head back. "Arthur, oh my god, Arthur!" __

 _He hears her keen._ "Oh Jesus, Ariadne." He yelps as he ejaculates over himself, eyes clenched shut as his body goes rigid, his hand tightening and relaxing in time to the clench and softening he can feel around him. "Ariadne..." __

_The last word is a sigh of gratitude._   
_He feels her underneath him, warm, soft and slick with their sweat. She wraps her arms around him and he lifts his head from her shoulder to kiss her, over and over again. "You're incredible." She smiles. "You're brilliant, you're sexy and I..."  
He steals the word with his mouth. "And you," he says, "Are intelligent, you're beautiful, you're sharp and I wouldn't be without you." Their next kiss is long, almost drowsy, a kiss they seem to willingly drown in._

 _"You know, I've never imagined this before, but I kind of like it." She laughs against his lips when they pause to breathe.  
"Mmm, me neither. But I kind of like it too." His smile is huge and genuine as he kisses her again._

 __Ariadne opens her eyes.

Arthur opens his eyes.

Both their beds are empty save for themselves.

"Shit."

\---

Ariadne was already at her work table when he arrived at the workshop. He felt almost without trying the waves of embarrassment coming off her, backed with the cringe of knowing he knows that she...

"There you are." Eames was suddenly in his path, blocking his way over to the architect's space. "A word, if I may?" Arthur frowned at him in response "About what? Can't it wait? I need to..."  
"No, it can't wait." He hustled the point man over to the spot he customarily used and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Did you sleep with her last night?"  
Arthur started in horror. "That's none of your fucking business!"  
"Really? She came in this morning with a love bite the size of North America on her neck and she was quite visibly upset. Now, I ask you again, in the light of the fact that you two appear to have some kind of psychic connection or whatever the hell has happened and the fact you two falling out could wreck the arrangement we have going on here, did you fuck her and walk out?"

His blue eyes were ferocious, pining Arthur to the spot. What's the right answer? I think we might have had mental sex? I think we had phone sex without the phone? I think we were both masturbating and somehow we were in each others heads? And she has a love bite? He shifted uncomfortably, feeling the scratches he found on his shoulders grate against the cloth and in the back of his mind he thought he heard Ariadne ask _*What's the matter?*_

"No."  
"No?"  
"No!" He hissed.  
"Listen Arthur, we're not best friends, but let me give you some advice: this could be the best thing for you both. You're besotted with her, she virtually worships the ground you walk on and so far neither of you has had the guts to do anything about it. Don't fuck it up by messing around in each other's heads, do you hear me?"

"Arthur?" Cobb's voice echoed through the workshop, breaking the moment in two.

"Don't fuck it up." Eames says slowly and emphatically, and Arthur felt himself nod,  
"I won't. I'll try. She..."

"Arthur!" Cobb sounded irate as he got closer, having left his office and come to fetch his dawdling point man. "There you are." He appeared in the middle of the space, hands on hips. "We need to talk." His eyes met Eames'. "All of us."

\---

They sat next to each other in the impromptu huddle of chairs that normally made up one of their team meetings. Ariadne's back was straight and stiff, her fingers curled against her knees and he didn't need to be psychic (or whatever the hell they are now) to know she's anxious, wound tighter than a coiled spring. For himself he had everything under his usual exterior, the point man is perfectly in place even if internally he felt ready to explode.

Cobb nodded to Yusuf and the chemist took centre stage. "Yesterday we conducted a series of tests to try and establish the extent to which you both are..." he hesitated and looked over at Cobb, who finished for him  
"Experiencing thought and memory sharing."  
"...I have to tell you both that the degree of sharing runs a lot deeper than we initially anticipated. If I could? Ariadne, would you examine this for me?" He held out a model to her, which she accepted and dropped into her lap, turning it this way and that.  
"This is the model I made for your level." She said slowly.

"Arthur, could you check this PASIV for me?" He got up and crossed to the open case Yusuf was indicating with his outstretched hand..  
"It's fine." He said after a few moments of fiddling. "What's the problem?"

"Ariadne, Arthur made that model."  
"He can't have. He's never seen the plans, let alone the realisation I made for you!"  
"I did." He glanced over to where she was holding it like an unexploded bomb.  
"You've never..." she said faintly.

"Arthur, Ariadne rigged that PASIV."  
"She doesn't have the first idea..." He looked over at her, her face incredulous and pushed, ever so gently, at her memory: _Eames, a table, the pieces, leaning into some part of herself she was only just discovering and then her hands, working as surely as if she'd done it a thousand times before._

 __"Do you see?" Yusuf's voice was eerily calm. "It extends into your abilities as extractors...."  
 _  
*You can build?*  
*You can fight?*  
_  
"...across at least two sensory systems, touch and sight, with an accuracy that I have to tell you is unheard of..." _  
_ _  
*The cards? You could see the cards.*  
*The needle? Fuck, I hated that needle.You were trying not to react but you hated it too.*_

 _"_...and possibly into perception and processing of emotional states."

 _*You were furious. I knew you were furious and I was barely thinking about it.*  
*This morning, you and me, we were...*  
*No,* _the embarrassment came up like a walland she covered her face with her hand.

"Arthur?" Cobb's voice startled him. "Arthur, what happened just now?"  
"We were talking..." he said slowly, not taking his eyes from her lovely, pale face.  
"No, old thing, I can assure you. No one has spoken for the last few minutes but Yusuf. You've just been gawping at each other like landed fish." Eames chipped in.  
"...in...our...heads?" She finished softly, frowning at him as if she hardly believed it herself.

 _*Oh god, what's happening?*_ He felt the terror yawn open inside her as surely as if it was his own. He dropped the lid of the PASIV and rushed across the space between them so he was kneeling in front of her.  
 _*Focus, we need to focus.*_ He put his hands on her knees and fought his own fear back. _*Look at me, Ariadne. We can solve this. Trust me. Do you trust me?_ * He lowered his head and looked straight into her eyes.  
 _*Yes.*  
*We can fix this. Or control it. You know we can. Breathe, like when you woke from the dream too soon, remember? Breathe slowly. I'm here.*_

 __"Incredible," he heard Yusuf sigh. "They're...truly telepathic?"  
"Arthur?" Cobb was quieter, "is everything alright?"  
Ariadne answered him "Yes. I was frightened. But Arthur reassured me." He felt her lean carefully into his mind, gratitude surfacing first, followed by relief then her own reassurance to him. "We're both OK." She nodded at him and let him respond in kind.

"The next step," the chemist was still peering at them like he'd been hit by lightning, "is a consultation we've arranged with one of the neuroscientists who developed somnacin for use in shared dreaming. He's flying into Paris tomorrow and he's requested you undergo some tests for him."  
"What kind of testing?" Arthur said sharply.  
"I understand he wants MRI scans, some blood work, some more stimulus and ability tests. He's promised Cobb that he only needs twenty four hours, based on the evidences we've given him. He won't risk more than that in any case."

"Who is it?" He turned abruptly to the blond man.  
"Hobbes." He replied shortly. "He's the only one who went freelance and the only one Miles would trust in spitting distance of us."

 _*You're worried. Who is he?*  
*He's ex government and ex special projects. He's famously thorough and extraordinarily blunt.*_

 __"Are you two going to do that all the time now?" Eames interrupted. "I can't say I'm very upset at the prospect since anything that keeps you quiet, Arthur, is a good thing in my book."  
"How can you even tell?" Ariadne broke her gaze with him to peer at Eames.  
"You get this look on your faces. Sort of absent, like you can hear something a long way off. Actually," he swung his chair to face Yusuf, "can I have a swig of that brew? It'll save me a fortune on my phone bills."

"He'll be here by 6am tomorrow," Cobb shot a pointed glare at the forger as he continued, daring him to speak, "he's requested you both are ready and at the clinic by 6.30am."

He felt Ariadne recoil at the thought of such an early start, sensations of her warm bed flooding her. _*I'll bring you coffee.*_ He promised and she smiled with sudden amusement, tinged with gratitude. _*Thank you, that would be nice.*  
*You're beautiful when you smile,* _the thought surfaced before he could stop it, his own smile starting as she blushed a sudden rose.

"It's unnerving." The Englishman muttered, his stare switching from one of them to another.  
"I think," Cobb started cautiously, "we might all be more comfortable if you were both to verbalise your conversations in front of us. If you think you can continue working, that is?"

 _*I'm...*_ Ariadne stopped herself. "I'm feeling alright. Arthur?"  
"I'm fine."

"Excellent. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm ready for another day at the coal face. Starting with some tea and a smoke." Eames' stood up and stretched with a huge smile. "Class dismissed?" He raised his eyebrows hopefully, and looked wide eyed at each one of them in turn.  
"Yes, I think we're done." Cobb dropped his notes into a messy pile and rose. "But the minute either of you feels unable to continue you're to tell me. Agreed?" He fixed Arthur with his intense blue gaze.  
"Of course."  
"Ariadne?"  
She nodded.  
"OK," he looked at each of them carefully once more before making for his desk.

Yusuf stood between them, lingering a moment. "What's it like?" He said suddenly. "When you...you know?"  
"It's like talking.  Except I can tell things, stuff you normally have to guess at." Ariadne's eyes found Arthur's, warm brown meeting darker brown, her voice as awestruck as it was when she first dreamt with him. "You even sound the same." She added.  
 _*I do?*  
*Yeah. Isn't that strange?_*   
The chemist coughed. "Sorry." She broke off their gaze. "I'd better do some work." She stood up, still holding his model, and nodded to Yusuf, throwing one more half smiling glance at Arthur as she backed away. _  
*Don't forget my coffee tomorrow.*  
*I won't.* _He risked a smile in return, and felt her tingle of pleasure at seeing it.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

\---  
 _ **She dreams:**_  
She's seven years old, sitting on the floor of her living room with a book of Greek myths open in her lap. Daedalus stands in his dirty robes with his head bowed before the furious gaze of Minos, his open hand towards the entrance of the labyrinth. The house is quiet, as if it's holding it's breath. She hears footsteps and when she looks up a familiar face smiles down at her. Her father kneels next to her, takes her hand and says with a smile "Would you like to come meet your new sister, Arthur?"

 _ **He dreams:**_  
They've taken the training wheels off his bicycle and he's peddling, cautiously at first, then harder, harder, until he feels like he's flying down the lane. He's six years old and it's his first taste of real freedom. The excitement courses through him, the never ending push glide of his legs as he goes effortless and easy. Behind him he hears his brothers call in a delighted cheer "Ariadne! Go, Ariadne!"

 _ **She dreams:**_  
She's lying in a hospital bed. The pain is muffled under a thick coating of morphia, but she can make out the man standing next to her, his lips reeling out something about duty and courage under fire, then he pauses, reaches over and pins a ribbon to her chest. "...awards you the Purple Heart. You did well, Arthur."

 _ **He dreams:**_  
He's sitting in front of the panel in an uncomfortable wooden seat. They have his portfolio open on the table in front of them and they're talking in hushed tones as they pass his plans, his drawings, his schematics back and forth between them. The questioning has raised a nervous sweat on his forehead, but he knows, he's confident, that he's good enough for them. The three men and two women confer, then one of the men (Professor Miles, he knows him now, but then he was just another person in a suit with the power to change his life) clears his throat and addresses him. "Your work...is very impressive. We'd like to offer you a place, if you'd be happy to join us?" His heart soars.  
"Yes, yes I'd love to. Thank you." He jumps up and rushes to the table, clasping Professor Miles hand in an impulsive gesture. "Thank you." He says again. "I won't let you down."  
"I know you won't, Ariadne." He smiles. "Congratulations."

 _ **She dreams:**_  
Her name is Martha and she's the first girl who she's ever kissed. She tastes of bubblegum and smells like sunshine. All afternoon they sit by the pond, kissing, smiling, kissing again. Her lips are a whole new world he wants to discover, over and over again, until the tingle in his body never ends. She leans into her dark hair as the sun sets, puts one arm around her  and Martha sighs "I think I love you, Arthur." She's sixteen, but even she knows that can't be true, not yet.

 _ **He dreams:**_  
His name is Bastian. A horrible, pretentious cough of a name. He takes him out for a cheap dinner and they drink rough red wine. His kisses taste of it when they get back to his tiny shoebox apartment and fall onto the couch. He fumbles with his clothes, wrestling with his bra strap, laughing when he finally takes pity on him and does it himself. It's his first time and when Bastian penetrates him the pain is sudden, a stab of contracting muscles and the friction of flesh on flesh. His face contorts but he doesn't slow down and he doesn't know enough yet to be able to tell this boy to stop, go slower, to touch him here or here and make it better. He reaches down and touches himself, wringing the orgasm Bastian expects out under his own fingers and hoping to god that he'll finish quickly. He can hear him grunting and panting above him. "Ariadne, this is so good. Ariadne, you're turning me on so much. Ariadne, this is the best fuck I've ever had." He's eighteen but he can already tell that Bastain is an awful liar.

 _ **She dreams:**_  
Eames is standing in the rain by St.Pancras Station, a half smoked cigarette in his hand. His overcoat collar is turned up to keep out the chill of London's autumn and his eyes are a shocking dark blue in his handsome face. "Arthur, you're an ass." He spits.  
"And you put us all at risk with your behaviour." She snarls back. "Cobb thinks..."  
"Who gives a shit! You've had it in for me since day one." The cigarette veers dangerously close to her face as he stabs the air.  
"That's because you have never shown me any respect. I am as good, if not better, than you." She fights to keep her voice level.  
"That's a pile of crap. You're fine on the details but the minute you're required to think outside your neat little boxes you lose it."  
"It's my little boxes that kept us from getting murdered. You need to learn that and fast." She hisses furiously. How dare he? How dare he stand there and defend his sloppy methods when they all nearly died in a hotel room somewhere in Euston?  
"You supercilious, arrogant, stuck up..."  
"Goodbye, Mr. Eames." She turns on her heel and walks away, letting the insults melt into the grey veil of falling water.

 _ **He dreams:**_  
"How was it?" Miles' voice jolts him out of his study of the principles of plumbing and drainage.

"I'm sorry?" He's confused for a moment. Miles smiles sympathetically and says softly,  
"Building in the dream." He stares at the older man, and suddenly he's back there, warping and bending worlds as easily as clay. Towers of glass, mountains of snow, echoing halls of marble and streets that went on for as long as he could imagine.  
"It was..." but he has no words, only that exhilarated hunger inside him that gnaws at him even in his sleep.

Miles puts out a cautious hand and pats his shoulder. "I'm know. And I'm sorry." He hesitates briefly. "I'm not sure if I should tell you this, but Dom wanted me to tell you they're coming back to Paris. He said you'd know who and where. Does that make sense?"

His heart leaps. It's been three months but suddenly it's as if he only stepped off the plane in LA an hour ago. The excitement  tingles in his throat. "When?" He breathes.

"In a week." Miles frowns, "I...I can make arrangements for you to study here part time and submit the work you do to make up the credit for the rest. Dom can stand as your work place sponsor and we can assess you..." He jumps up, not caring this is a quiet study area and grabs both Miles' hands, much as he did all that time ago at his interview. "You can?"

"Yes. I'm still not sure this is right thing to do, but...I understand. Just...Don't get lost, Ariadne." His eyes are sad as he looks at him, and he remembers with a dull shock that Mal was his daughter.

\---

Ariadne rolled over with a groan and smacked her alarm off. "Arthur." She sighed, rubbing one hand over her eyes.

Arthur's eyes snapped open. "Ariadne?" He whispered to the ceiling above him. 

~*~

Doctor Hobbes was nothing like she had been expecting. Instead of a wild haired, Einsteinian mad scientist he was a neat, small red headed man with a close cropped beard and bright green eyes disturbingly like Cobb's when he stared at her through his glasses. Arthur had twitched when they shook hands, but when Ariadne tried to peep into his memory to see why he had deflected her with a firm _*No_.* A whole day at the clinic, much of it spent inside the claustrophobic tube of an MRI machine, had left her enervated and anxious despite the coffee he had presented her with at stupid o'clock that morning. Any other time she might have pressed him, followed the twitch back to it's source, but now their shared anticipation and worry was too great to let her.

"Let me be honest with you both," Hobbes had started, "The first thing I have to tell you is that I cannot reverse nor cure this condition. What you are experiencing has been reported approximately fifteen times in the entire history of the somnacin project and in that time I have not been able to find any intervention that will restore the subjects to their previous states. And for that I am truly sorry."

"Wait, this has happened before?" She shook her head incredulously.

"It has always been considered a small enough risk to be acceptable by those who knew and simply a rumour to those who didn't. How much do you know about how somnacin works?" He fixed her with his bright stare, then laughed unexpectedly. "I was forgetting, you know precisely what your colleague knows. And he, I think, knows plenty. You were in one of the Theta test groups, weren't you; you were a Major, isn't that right?"  
"I'm a civilian now." Arthur's voice was stonily polite. "And yes, I was."  
"Well, it's always a pleasure to meet an old comrade." She felt Arthur flinch and his discomfort increase. "So, somnacin. Tell me what you know."

"It's a compound of neurotransmitters blended with a variable degree of sedatives." She started slowly, "it's principal action is as an acetylcholine inhibitor but it has secondary effects on the production of norepinephrine, histamine and seratonin. In a series of cascade reactions it stimulates the amygdalae while suppressing activity in the pre frontal cortex..."

"That's enough! She isn't here as some kind of performing animal and neither am I." Arthur snapped.  "We've done a whole day of tests for you, you've taken thousands of pictures of the insides of our heads, stuck us with needles, waved cards at us, blindfolded and played static at us and I will not sit here while you get your kicks off us playing mind reading games." He slammed his hand into the desk making Dr. Hobbes raise his eyebrows in mild surprise.  
"Very well, Major."  
"Arthur. You will address me as Arthur. Sir."

"As you will." His tone was mild. "As I've said, there have been at least fifteen reported cases of experiences like yours in the world since extraction," he said the word with slight distaste, "has become more common place. Yours is by no means the worst. A group of four, including their intended victim, all became mentally bonded after using an experimental form of somnacin designed to heighten the dreamers perceptions within the state."  
"What happened to them?" She asked.  
"Sadly, one of them committed suicide. The others now live peacefully on a chicken farm, I understand.They still work together, but as there's no cure they had to learn to live with each other inside each others heads."  
"How cozy."

He ignored Arthur and carried on. "In your case, what you can see from the MRI are increased levels of baseline activity in the temporal lobe in both individuals. During stimuli tests the parietal lobe and corresponding sensory processing areas show a burst of use first in the one of you receiving the stimulus, then in the other, picking it up, if you like. The delay is minute, as you can see from the time index...."  
 _  
*Is he always like this?*_ Ariadne let the man's voice wash over her in wave of polysyllables and neuroanatomy.  
 _*Pontificating, overly technical and in love with sound of his own voice, you mean?*_ Arthur's mental shrug was eloquent. _*In my experience, yes. Just wait until he really hits his stride.*_

"...In skill recall you both show similar activity patterns across the hippocampus, the cerebellum, the basal ganglia and so on. During tests of telepathy, " again the word seemed distasteful, "there is a definite similarity in the activation in the temporal and frontal lobes."

"Which means?" Arthur bit the words off.

"Well, you're not imagining it for one thing. And the mechanism, for all it's unusualness, is apparently stable in both of you. The blood and cerebrospinal fluid testing showed that while you are secreting higher amounts of some neurochemicals they're well below a level considered toxic.From what you've told me it would seem that you're both gaining in perception of the other as time passes?"

"Yes."

"If you continue to develop in line with the other cases I've encountered, and I have no reason to doubt you will, eventually you will find that you can communicate, share, without physical distance being a hindrance. You will have full memory recall from each other, including skills and motor function as well as autobiographical and emotional memories. I'm right in thinking at the moment you can only reach those during dreaming?"

"Yes. Or when one of us is actively engaged in conscious recall." _Mal_ flashed through her mind and the memory of Arthur's grief was acid.

He paused and looked at his notes again. "Are you lovers?"   
Ariadne felt her face heat and Arthur's instinctive recoil at having his private life prodded at. "No!"

"Do you want to be?"  
Silence, within and without, the molten images of that morning ( _only two days ago, it was only two days since.._.) flaring up and being brutally repressed.

"I see. I have a private hypothesis about why this happens, if you'll indulge me? When a set of individuals share a dream they take with them a series of emotional memories and responses which can be manipulated in the lucid state. Where this series is particularly powerful, evocative or somehow unresolved it leads to corresponding increases in hormone, neurotransmitter and brain activity and sometimes in turn leads to this perfect storm, a change in awareness triggered by the heightened state. This in turn alters brain chemistry, the underlying structures, the person themselves, so they are tuned like a receiver to those whom they have this emotive link to." He tapped the desk idly with one hand. "Have you tried actively entering each others minds yet?"

They both shook their heads.  
"It is the next achievable step. In every case I have observed where the subjects made an active effort to experience the other's psyche it made the transition easier, they were then better able to communicate and distinguish between their own thoughts, memories and those of the other..."

Ariadne felt the tendrils of fear uncoil inside her again. * _We're not going to be able to tell which of us is thinking?*_  
Arthur reached across and took her hand, squeezing it tightly in his own. * _I won't let that happen. We're not going to lose ourselves. We're going to manage this, OK? I won't let you get lost.*_ His tone was firm and clear in her mind _. *I'm just as worried as you, but I won't let it beat us. Either of us.*_

 __"...in the long run they were able to better control and cope with the condition."

"How would we go about doing that?" Ariadne tried to sound calm.

"My understanding is that the easiest method is to...visualise the mind as being enclosed in a bubble, or a protective skin." He waved his hands in a vague circle. "Then to imagine yourself walking through or penetrating it to reach what's within."  
 _  
*Well, that's as clear as mud.*_ Arthur's tone was contemptuous.  
 _*I had to ask. How else we were supposed to know what to do?*  
_  
"Can we still work?" She felt his hand tighten over hers, the grim determination to tackle their future head on foremost.

"It's not transmittable, if that's what you're asking me. I see from the results your chemist gave me that you've entered a single level dream with no problems. I see no reason why you shouldn't continue in whatever line of work you're currently pursuing." He shrugged. "Once again, I am truly sorry that I cannot offer you any more." He stood and held out the folder of notes to Arthur. "My only advice to you is this: the more denial you enter into about the condition and the factors which caused it the harder it will be for you both. Resolution and acceptance are the key to making this an asset rather than a hindrance. And I sincerely wish you both luck."

\---

They ended up at her apartment eating Chinese take out.

Out of all the things they could have done as they left the clinic, still holding hands she had noticed later as if they were two shipwreck survivors clinging on to each other for dear life, out of the world of possibilities he had turned to her _*You're hungry.*_ Not a question, a statement. God, this was going to take more than a little getting used to. _*So are you. For...*_ she pushed _*...Mah Gu Gai Pin. Wow, no soy sauce for you, huh?*_    
 _*And you want...*_ she felt a faint press on her mind _*Hot and Sour Soup. And some Chow Mien?*_  
 _*To ersatz for you?*_  
 _*You have to try real Chinese food. It's nothing like the stuff they put in cartons anywhere else.You'd never touch Chow Mien again*_ there was a mental shudder.  
Floating up out of his memory before her came _Shanghai, a clutter of streets so higgledipiggledy you could barely see the sky above your head, people in Mao suits, the tinny clang of bicycle bells, chili scented smoke fogging the air from a huge steel wok and a spurt of neon;  a back room riddled with damp and cockroaches, Dom's voice whispering something, a gun shot; sunrise, pale blue and gold over the harbour, light reflecting off the glass of sky scrapers and pale grey concrete. A body in a dumpster. A park with a pagoda and weeping willow trees.._.  
 _  
*You can see, can't you? I'm sorry. It's too much, I've done too much.*_ He shut down the recollection hard, almost recoiling from her. _  
_ _*I'm going to know sooner or later.*_ She tightened her hold on his hand. _*I'm not going to judge you. You're not going to judge me either. We just have to try...*_  The words ran out, but the feeling lingered; acceptance, understanding, how ever hard they might be.

They sat next to each to other picking food from the scattering of cartons on her coffee table. "Why do people always overorder Chinese food?" Ariadne tried to keep her voice light, all too aware that under the surface they were both a swirling mess of _What do we do now? Should we do what he said? I don't want you to see what's inside me. I'm afraid. I don't want to hurt you._

 __"Greed? Basic human drive to stave off hunger by filling up while food is abundant?" Arthur twirled his chopsticks like he'd been using them all his life. Perhaps he had, it occurred to her, and soon she would know, like it or not. She knew she was drawing on his dexterity, because she normally ended up throwing food across the table, herself, any surface in fact, when normally called on to use them. Watching her fingers manipulate them was odd, almost as if they were no longer her own, so in the end she put them down and fetched a fork.

 _*Should we try it then?*_ Arthur's thought popped into her head as suddenly as a slap across the face. _*Entering each other's heads, I mean.*_  
 _*I know what you meant.*_ She instantly regretted being so waspish. _*He's the expert. If he says it'll help...*  
*I don't like it any more than you do.* _Arthur put his food down and looked down for a long moment. _*My...mind, my thoughts, my actions have always been my own. Even with what we do, inside our heads is still a private place. And now I have to share it...*_  
 _*With me. I'm sorry.*_  
He turned, his eyes huge and fixed on hers. _*For all the shitty things that is, I don't regret for a second that it's you I have to share myself with.*  
_ Ariadne felt a sudden swoop of vertigo. _*You don't...*  
*And neither do you.* _He reached across and cupped her cheek.His hand was warm and smooth on her face, and she felt her own heat in her palm. _*Don't be afraid of me, Ariadne. I haven't always been the most honest, the most noble or the most upright man. But there's nothing inside me that wants to do you harm.*  
_ She swallowed hard, her heart beat too loud in her own ears. _*It's not you I'm afraid of. It's me. There are things...I'm not sure I want anyone to see.*  
*Pretty soon we won't have any choice. The sooner we get around to accepting each other...*  
*I know.* _She closed her eyes, unable to look at him any longer. Stupid really, when he was inside her head already. No place to hide any more. No way of avoiding the things she had buried for the good of her professional life, the team, for fear of what the reaction might be. She inhaled deeply. No way backwards, only forwards.

"OK." She set her jaw, opened her eyes and put her hand up to cover his. "Shall we try it?"

\---

 _  
**She sees:**   
_

_The bubble wall is clear in her mind's eye. It's milky, like smoke, and resists her hands like soft glass when she reaches out to touch it. She can see indistinct forms behind it, roiling and twisting like boiling water. She can hear Arthur call her name, over and over, and she follows the sound, pressing the strange surface as she goes until her hand suddenly sinks in, her arm vanishing to the elbow._ This is the point, the way in _, she thinks to herself. Beyond the wall another hand has taken hers, urging her forwards. She breathes, once, twice, then steps in, letting the wall close around her._

 _  
**He sees:**   
_

_He stands in front of a gunmetal grey gate,  all studs and scrolls like something from a fairy tale. It feels warm and hard when he touches it, the part of his brain used to dreaming working easily with the idea of being just outside Ariadne's mind._ How do I get in? _He hears her answer, something of a laugh to it:_ Knock and The Door Will Open! _He reaches up, makes a fist and as he beats the surface dimples, softens like tar and his hand slides through. On the other side someone takes hold and starts to pull, dragging him towards them. The solid metal wall seems to turn concave as he walks through it, bending around him as he goes through and into her head._

 **  
_Her:_   
**

_She can feel him inside her. He enters cautiously, a slow drip of awareness, he's like ink droplets falling into water, curling out around her in smoky trails. As her synapses fire she feels herself twist around him, pulling him in faster and faster until he's a bright arrow shot from the heart of the sun, crashing over her in a wave that drenches her, memories sticking to her own in a rapid whirl. A Christmas tree shining in the dark; the smell of gunpowder; Mal's face, stained with tears; Holding Philipa's baby self, warm and fragile; someone saying_ "It's not you, it's me" _and the sting of a lie; A mirror holding her (his) tired face; mountains, slums, cities of glass and stone; and all that comes with them, paths spinning out bright across space into senses that jangle with recollection. He's dark and cold and hot and bright in a blizzard of change. Her scares and comforts her as she lets him within. He lies under her skin and makes her breathe. He touches the parts of her that no one sees. He feels down into her body, opening her lungs, her heart, her womb, making room for himself as he takes her in. She flees with him and sees herself, every part of her laid bare, the woman with the red thread leading him from the dark and she knows it, for the first time, she feels it inside him, the fear and the rage and the love that he has for her, she's on her knees to him and he's taking her in so far she never, ever wants to let go..._

  
 _ **Him:  
**_ _  
He can feel her inside him. She floods him, throwing light into all the corners, her presence within making him want to cry out. He feels his body arch, nerve endings on fire as she flexes his fingers, pulls on his memories like she's swallowing him whole. She's warm, rich, a jewel box of a woman spilling down him in an endless rain of sensations. His breath pants, his body shakes and heats as she plunges into him, unfurling him in the typhoon that is her. A billion billion star bursts behind his eyes, a flick book of images pouring across him as he twitches and expands to accommodate her inside: a beach house with foam tipped waves lapping the shore; his (her) brothers, all dark hair and smiles as they build her a tyre swing; a voice calling her name as she walks away across Trafalgar Square; chocolate richness melting on his tongue and smears of ink on his fingers; blurring and reforming around him. He's falling in her arms and he can't stop, doesn't want to stop, it's nothing and it's everything she is; the fire burning on a summer hillside, an endless maze that he runs through, turning back to see himself as he goes and he feels it, for the first time, he feels what she feels for him and his heart squeezes, bursts open and she's there, never stopping, never ceasing, hard as diamonds and softer than pearls, a waterfall of dark water washing him down, a hand on his face, a terrible beauty that cuts him to shreds even as he goes on, and on, and on, begging her to stay and never...  
_  
\---

From far, far away a shrill ring cut through his ears. Arthur felt so distant from himself he wasn't sure if he was lying down on the floor or suspended in mid air. Their bodies were laying next to each other on the carpet of Ariadne's living room, he knew that much, but everything about him felt as insubstantial as vapour. As if there was now a cloud of himself and Ariadne, intermingling in an endless Brownian motion. She was within and without, languid tendrils of awareness drowsing over him as he wrapped around her.

 _*Ariadne*_   
_*Arthur*_

The blow to his head brought him into consciousness hard, whatever had caused it bouncing away over the carpet. "Shit!" He groaned, grabbing towards it, rolling his body over as he did so. Every muscle and bone ached as he moved, his head tight and throbbing. He groped around and his grip finally closed on the small hard shape of his cell phone which bleated urgently as he picked it up. Opening his eyes to the thin dawn light  he could see the display flashing: **Eames**.Next to him he heard Ariadne mumble something indistinct into the carpet _,_ her fingers clawing the pile. _*My cell phone's ringing.*  
*No, it's mine. Stay there.* _

"Arthur." He snapped, instantly regretting it for the aftershock that went through him.

"There you bloody well are. Nudge Ariadne, get out of bed and get your arses down here. Hvid's come Paris early and we have to go in on him today. Cobb's been doing a number on my head because you've been incommunicado all night. What the hell have you both been doing?" Eames' voice seemed to be coming from inside a wind tunnel and it clanged in his head like metal tumbling in a washer. He felt Ariadne wince in response.

"Something Hobbes recommended we try." He brought his free hand up to rub his stiff forehead.

 "Well, at least you're in one piece. Can you work?"

"Yes."  _*After some tylenol, a hot shower and three espressos*_ Ariadne added.  
"Ariadne?"

Arthur looked over at her, her eyes stuttering open and her face screwing up in discomfort. _*I  can.*_ She waylaid his concern. _*Don't even think about saying no.*_

"Yes, she can too."

"God, I keep forgetting you two are joined at the brain. Hurry up then. We've got about two hours before we need to be at his hotel." Eames hung up as curtly as he had answered.

~*~

The clanging headache subdued, freshly showered, dressed and made up, Ariadne felt less like an alien from the planet Fffnnaaarg and more like an extractor off to work on a plagiarist's mind. Her thoughts still wobbled every now and then, thinking in tandem with Arthur less odd than before but still, stumbling over memories that weren't quite her own, thinking of exit strategies and sight lines when she might otherwise have been focusing on the integrity of the dream world was a disjointing experience. She sat peacefully in the front of the lecture Hvid was giving, trying to retain her inner composure so it didn't broadcast to Arthur and throw him off balance. Likewise, for all she could feel him desperate to fumble through the catalogue of new things she was now sharing with him, he appeared to be doing the same.

She rolled the injection pen neatly in her pocket. All she had to do was get near him in the crush which would form when he offered to sign copies of his book, press the pen against his backside or leg ("...but anywhere will do, in a pinch." Yusuf had explained.) The needle would be in and out before he felt it and in five minutes, hey presto, a sudden urge for the bathroom followed shortly by unconsciousness.

"He has an eye for pretty girls." Eames had leered at her. "You're just his type. So you should be able to catch his eye and slip him the mixture, no problem." Indeed, Hvid seemed to have spent most of the lecture flattering her with no so subtle winks and smiles, much to her discomfort. _*Don't worry, I won't let him lay a finger on you.*_ Arthur's tone was crisp and she smiled at it. _*How's the men's room by the way?*_ A wave of disinfected air and the discomfort of being in a cramped stall hit her full on. _*It could be worse, I could be in here with Eames trying to use the window as an escape route.*_

She put her chin in her hand and let Hvid's smile fade into the background. _A hot night in Portugal, the smell of stale beer and urine burning her nostrils, someone hammering on the door while she clutched her gun and kicked the glass out..._

 _*Like Lisbon.*  
*Yes. And Caracas, Mexico City and Key West. I wish he'd give up on gambling when he's drunk and flush. Trouble starts and he seems to think it's all part of the experience.*_ Eames' voice was clear in her mind: _"It's Her Majesty's Armed Forces way, Arthur: we fight, we drink and we fuck, but we only die once."_ And under that respect, a liking even, for the sharp, clever forger.

The wave of applause started in the distance and Hvid's smile swam back into the front of her vision.  
 _*Ready?*_ She drew herself inwards, shutting off the stream of memories fogging her head. The slim cylinder tucked into her palm as she stood and took a deep breath.  
 _*Darling,*_ he drawled, Eames like, with a mental grin, _*I was born ready.*_

 __She smiled and stepped forwards.

\---

Hvid's dream turns into a enormous disaster from the word go. Despite everything they had planned for, the elaborate set up of having him pass out then have Dom, in the guise of a passing private physician, take him back to his suite, barring the door and wiring themselves in, it's not getting to him that proves the problem.

It turns out that while he's not militarised he's one twitchy, suspicious bastard by nature and his projections, out of all the ones Arthur's encountered, are like cats waiting by mouse holes, tails swishing and every muscle tense. When he and Dom drop down to the second level, leaving Eames and Ariadne behind to try and distract the upper levels of his mind, the library has taken on a tone more akin to a fortress than a repository of knowledge. The white marble is tinged grey, the desks lined up by the windows, seemingly to act as impromptu sniper positions or shelter from gun fire, and the projections all appear dressed in a uniform slate serge that renders them virtually identical. They scurry around, muttering in hushed tones, consulting plans and books like a wasps' nest that had been shaken and was preparing to sting back.

"This is not good." Cobb muttered as they surveyed the scene from the fifth floor balcony. 

"No." Arthur looked down at the pair of guards with semi automatic rifles standing at rigid attention either side of the basement access. "That must be where he's keeping it." He gestured cautiously.

"You're the dreamer. Is there any other way down there?"  
Arthur frowned, and Ariadne's memory butted into his, her attention leading him. "There's an external ceiling light on the west side which opens into the first sub basement."

"Great. So now all we have to do is get down to it without attracting any attention." Cobb's voice was tight and frustrated as they looked downwards, the agitated projections swarming furiously around the stairs. "Come on, lets see if we can blend in. Otherwise..." They'll be fighting their way through it, he doesn't say. They'll be torn to pieces in less time than in takes to get more than five feet. 

\---

Eames sat calmly next to her in the rooftop bar, a drink gleaming in a heavy crystal glass in front of him. He was dreaming this level rather than Yusuf and Ariadne was perversely pleased that he was with her rather than the chemist. Behind them the lights of Christianshavn and the traffic on the Knippels bridge twinkled as sweetly as Christmas lights, but that was all the relief that there seemed to be from the oppressive atmosphere they're in.

The bar was beautiful, a cream and wood poem of Scandinavian minimalism that she had hoped would lull Hvid's ego into a drowsy blur of luxury. Instead it seemed to be having the opposite effect. The projections were all clustered into tight groups who muttered and stared out of the corners of their eyes at anyone who approached, glasses clutched in tense hands while they talked. Eames had been planning to drop into character as another brunette so they could flatter him with a little double girl attention, but one look had apparently made him realise that the entire dream was more fragile than a porcelain cup.

"It'd be like throwing matches in a firework factory." He had glanced around him, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene. "I will, if needs must, but I think you'll have to use your charms on this one sweetheart." Ariadne made a small face, recalling his eager winks and smiles at her. "Don't worry, I'll see to him if he gets over friendly." Eames sipped his drink, relaxing into his chair and smiling at a female projection in a gold dress who glowered back. "Arthur would never forgive me if he copped a feel on the sly. Relax a little. The tenser you are the more attention they'll give you."

She picked up her glass and wet her lips cautiously. In the back of her mind Arthur's anxiety was sharp, a metallic buzz of discomfort counterpointing her own. She understood that this was Hvid's true nature, a man with something to hide and prepared to protect it at any cost. She recalled others, minds housing private armies and attack squads, and knew with gut clenching certainty that this was by no means the worst it could be, but that it's in no way what they had been expecting. She took a swig and forced herself to sit as languidly as possible while Eames continued to radiate charm.

But she was aware now, far too aware in fact: They were in shit up to their necks.  
   
\---

He and Cobb make it down the stairs with nothing more than the odd hard look. They slipped out of the building and sure enough, at ground level grimed over with cobwebs and dirt, was the half circular window that led into the basement. Arthur cautiously knocked the glass out, praying that no one was in hearing, then they both dropped down into the dry ,earthy darkness.

"Where are we?" Cobb hissed.  
"In a pipe junction. There's an access about ten metres in front of us that leads into one of the main corridors." Arthur replied.

They inched forwards along the bare brick wall, finally hitting the mesh screen that divided the junction from the building beyond. Cobb knelt down, his fingers loosening the screws with swift neatness, but as they were about to make their move there was the unmistakable stroke of pounding feet coming towards them. Both men froze. For one heart stopping moment the steps seemed to slow, right by their hiding place it seemed. Arthur felt his fingers twitch reflexively around his gun, willing his body to be calm and still. Cobb's face was grim in the shadows opposite him, a pale gargoyle carved from granite. For a second the slap of feet on concrete was huge, a martial beat hammering crazily around the high ceilinged space like a too rapid heart. A beat which slowly began to dwindle, then fade into the distance.

"Patrol?" Dom barely moved his lips as he spoke.  
"Probably."  
"We have to move fast then. This guy's even more paranoid than he looks. Where's the secure room?"  
"Down the corridor, three right turns then two left."  
"No shortcuts?"  
"That is the short cut."  
"Wonderful. Come on." He pulled the screen aside and slipped through.

\---

Eames twisted his watch round. "How long?" She murmured.

"Another twenty minutes." He shot two rapid glances right and left.

"If we make it that far." Ariadne's senses prickled as she regarded the frosty scene. So far her charm had proved wasted on any projection who came near enough to encounter her smiles and eyelash flutters.

"How are they doing? It does work when you're both dreaming, doesn't it?" Eames spoke under cover of his raised glass.  
She replied with a small nod and tried another winning beam at a passing man. His eyes ran over her appraisingly, but he didn't slow or stop.

"They're OK." She refused to press deeper, to try and see what lay lower down in Hvid's mind.  Arthur wasn't scared, but he was sending out wave after wave of low level agitation, his normal sharp focus underlined by a tension that made her palms sweat. "They're not doing any better than us."

"Bloody hell." He hissed. "I thought this guy was a teacher."

"He's terrified he's going to get found out. It's making him naturally defensive." She risked a careful visual appraisal of  the bar and what she saw did nothing to quell her alarmed senses. A small group of projections was forming near the main door, a grumbling knot of faces that seemed to be sweeping the room in wide strokes like a searchlight. At the instant she looked over, the man who she'd just attempted to flirt with caught her look and frowned so hard his face contorted. She quickly jerked her head down so she was staring into her lap and immediately knew she'd done the wrong thing.

"They've found us." She hissed to the forger, Eames' eyes widening and his jaw tightening at her words. "Or they're about to. We need to get out of here."

\---

Cobb was half into breaking the combination of the secured room's door when they heard the sound of the patrol again. Only this time it not only sounded like a larger group, but it also appeared to be moving faster and unerringly towards them.  
"Shit." The extractor sped up his actions, but even he seemed to know that even in their current position they're on a losing foot. Arthur had moved in front of him, gun drawn, when he heard him speak again.

"I need more time. Move the maze."

"But they'll come straight for us if I change anything."

"Not if you do it carefully enough. For fuck's sake Arthur, do as I say!" The last sentence was barked with such contained fury he turned towards his colleague, not sure he had heard him correctly. It needed a finely focused mind to induce a steady change that disturbs as little as possible around it and he can't be sure even now, with all that he knows from her, that he can.

\---

Ariadne stood quickly, Eames a beat after her. "Get back to the room. You're the dreamer. You need to stay under as long as possible. I can distract them."

"How?" He reached back for his gun, a slow move designed to keep him as discreet for as long as they still could be.

"With a merry chase, Mr. Eames." She smiled broadly, raising her eyebrows. "How else?"

"You're even talking like him now. What next, matching suits?"

"Go, now." She turned away,  preventing further discussion even as she heard him draw breath to stop her.

Her mind worked furiously as she crossed the polished floor. Six projections in the doorway. Fifteen in the bar behind her. She needed to take out at least four in the doorway before she could get out of the room and cover Eames' exit. Her right hand went to her hip and there, with only the vaguest notion that she had thought to put it on her, was their gun. She unbuttoned her jacket, swinging her hips as her heels struck the wood with a noise like nails hammering into a coffin. She moved deliberately, pinning her look on the male projection who had first caught her eye, who by now was staring at her openly and hungrily.

Ariadne smiled radiantly in return, reached behind her and grasped her Glock in her fist. 

\---

"I don't know that..." Arthur hesitated, it was too much of a risk with them almost on top of them.

"You _do_ because Ariadne _does_. Move the fucking maze or we're both screwed, do you hear me?" The words are a barely contained shout, the beat of rampaging projections moving in on them horrifyingly close.

\---

The first shot hit the man in his left eye. Ariadne pivoted on the balls of her feet, swinging to aim and fire at the next projection as she sped up, breaking into a run as she kept on aiming and firing, watching them drop as she advanced. Her eyes narrowed, each shot had to count or she wouldn't  clear the door before they were down. The punch of the recoil jolted into her and she barely felt it, she hardly registered that behind her there were shouts, advancing feet and the crash of breaking glass. Adrenaline kicked through her and her mind felt as clear and cool as a crystal scalpel. Her body obeyed the new commands as she fired them off, everything narrowed down to a controlled burst of energy. She wasn't angry, she wasn't  frightened, she wasn't even sorry, she simply felt a fierce kind of joy.

She jumped the fallen  bodies, evading the hands put out to grab her and sprinted down the corridor towards the main stairs.

\---

Death by a thousand hands, the job ruined; Arthur knew he didn't have a choice.

He reached out, Ariadne's memories rippling through him and pulled the fabric of the dream up around them. The maze twisted under his touch, throwing up dead ends and looping walls like Escher's nightmares come true. He could see it, so perfectly clearly in his mind, overwriting the old design and remaking it. Steel doors dropped in front of them, the bare brick warping in subtle bends and backwards twists behind it, oubliettes blossoming under the floors, one loop reverting to a closed drop and another spiralling off into an infinity that not even he could see. He could hear the projections suddenly caught inside it, see them almost, like ants running in neat dark lines, scurrying closer even as they fell into his traps.

\---

Ariadne raced down the stairs, turning to fire every so often to keep the chasing projections back. In her mind she knew clearly what she had to do now. Her heart pounded, but she felt the part of her that was now Arthur surging cleanly through her veins, cutting out the external distractions and forcing her into this moment.

She crashed out on the twentieth floor balcony, and sprinted to the railing. _Dear God Eames_ , she hoped to herself as she heard the projections come yelping down the stairwell like a pack of dogs, _please have got out_. She jumped up and swung her legs over so she was sitting side on, her feet in the void and her gun raised. _Come on then, you bastards. Come on._

\---

The threads of the structure whirled into a labyrinth, he's doing too much, too fast and Arthur pulled back with shock. His mind was full of impossible structures teetering on air and he can smell her perfume, see her hands twisting solid matter round her fingers like dough.

"Did you do it?" Dom's voice demanded.

"Yes." He managed, shaking his head.  "Yes. That should keep them back a while longer. Are you in?"

Cobb kicked the door back in reply. Inside was a bookcase, each volume neatly stamped with the title and author. Some were Hvid's. Most were not.  "We're good. Let's get the stuff and go."

\---

The first man through she shoots, his falling body tripping two behind him. The next fell a few feet from her. The one after that was mere fingertips from grabbing onto her torso. This is a losing battle, but she's not in it to win. As they poured towards her, a wave of angry faces and raised voices, Ariadne leant back and dropped into space. She fell face up, the gun in her hands pointed towards the projections leaning to catch her.

She's mentally calculated that she has 1.8 seconds before she hits the floor, her reaction time being 0.2 seconds at it's fastest, gives her approximately seven shots at most before she dies. Her teeth grit as she fires, each shot arcing into the space above her. It's less about precision and more about luck now, she realised that, but hopefully some of them made it where they could do some damage.

The ground comes up to meet her in a shrieking whistle, her hair flying into her face as she goes. She reaches out to Arthur for a split second, trying to prepare him for what's coming, but she knows it won't do much good. Her body collides with the floor, bones shattering, organs bursting, a searing hot river of pain pouring through her and then it's gone, the hotel, the projections, her blood staining her vision, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

\---

Arthur dropped to his knees, his face contorting. "Ariadne." He wheezed, as he buckled under the crash of agony that reverberated through him. "What happened? Arthur, what happened?" Cobb's voice came from so far off it seemed like a whisper, the pain sudden and overwhelming like it had never been before.

A hand slapped at his face and Cobb was suddenly loud in his ears. "It's in your head. Get back here, now. What happened?"

"She jumped. They found them. We need to get out of here." He wrenched himself back into line, shutting off the mental relays insisting he was a crumpled heap on the floor. Cobb swore and furiously turned to the bookcase; running his fingers down the spines, his lips repeating the names, trying to put them safely inside his own memory. In front of them the steel doors started to shake from the pounding of projected fists.

"We have to go!" Arthur's hands groped for his gun, one eye on the door as Cobb reached the last shelf. "Got it?"

Cobb nodded as he straightened up, bracing himself for the kill shot as Arthur aimed and fired.

\---

Ariadne came to sharply, her body rolling in on itself in imagined pain. The physical recollection too sharp to bear, even as she heard Arthur tell her quietly it was just in her mind, that she was whole and well despite what her brain was insisting. She fumbled for the lead in her wrist even as Yusuf came to help her, ripping the cuff away as fast as she could and pushing herself upright.

"What happened?" His voice was soft.  
"The guy's a suspicious nutcase." She twisted her neck from side to side, ignoring the needles of agony pressing into her skull with as much force as she could muster. 

"The others?"  
"Coming after me." __

_*Yes*_ Arthur interrupted, _*Any minute now.*_  

Arthur: Unbidden the recollection of what she had done played back across her inner eye. She had fought her way through a crowd of projections, a blaze of bullets and blood, then smashed herself to pieces in a twenty floor drop. Was this what it was going to be like all the time now? Herself pulled like a puppet on someone else's strings? His strings, in fact.  And, worse, she had revelled in knowing it was in her capabilities to be that person; no more the fragile princess architect, instead the gun wielding woman who could pick off projections like tin cans in a shooting arcade. Behind her own disordered, angry thoughts she saw him manipulating the maze at Cobb's insistence, the wonder of knowing he could twist dreams like never before and the horror of realising he shouldn't be able to, all in one swirl of sharp happiness. It was too much, too much to face right now, acceptance and resolution be damned. 

She stood suddenly, her legs shaking even as she willed them firmly to hold her upright. "I've got to go." Her voice made Yusuf turn, his eyes wide and his mouth dropping open, uncomprehending. "Don't you think you should wait? There might be..."

"No. I'm going. I need, " she scrubbed her face with hand, " some time to myself." There was a joke. She wasn't ever going to be by herself again. _*You did what you had to do. Let it go.*_ Arthur's voice sounded clearer. They must be close now and she had to leave before then, she didn't want to face any of them, not even Yusuf.  Ariadne grabbed her purse and forced herself to walk, across the suite, out of the door and away, as far as she could, ignoring Yusuf's voice behind and Arthur's inside her until both ceased.

~*~

Ariadne sat in her kitchen, listening to the wind rattle the window panes. Outside dusk was falling, deep blue and lemon streaks against the horizon where the sun was fading. She sat still, not reaching to switch on the lights but instead drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them tight to herself. On the table sat her totem, lying on it's side where she'd flicked it to check, to be sure, that she was in reality, and a cup of tea which she'd made herself in the hope it might prove comforting.

After leaving Hvid's suite it turned out that 'as far as she could go' was actually her apartment. _A pathetic gesture really_ , she thought, _like an animal hiding it in it's den_. She had stripped off her suit as soon as she was inside the door, pulled down her hair and scrubbed off the make up she had put on. She took another shower, this one so blisteringly hot  that made her skin red and prickly, then redressed in her pyjamas, made tea and sat down with her totem. As it fell, a heavy thunk against the surface, she wanted to grab it and throw it in fury against the wall. It had all happened. It was all true. She was no longer just herself; she was some chimera, a freak of nature, the world's first architect-point woman and all because she had tried to bury the part of her that wanted to be closer to Arthur than just a colleague, he had done the same and now they were paying the price in spades.

As if knowing had made anything different. They were still physically at arms length, even if their stupid, fucked up feelings for each other where now all too plain. She tried to look away from it, but it was no good, the complex of _desire/need/want/respect/liking/admiration/attraction_ boiled between them even at this distance. Arthur had remained blissful silent since she had walked out of the hotel, but he was still there in the back of her head, still walking around his apartment, eating noodles and analysing the data Dom had found, cursing himself for letting her go before they had spoken and softly, almost covertly, following her mind back to check she was alright. He felt warm, reassuring, as if he was bracing her body with his own, but she had pulled away, pulled herself back hard as if it could make any difference. 

The wind howled under the eaves and she shivered. _God, make it quiet down or I'll never get to sleep_ , she sighed and closed her eyes, resting her head on her knees. A soft tendril of a memory uncurled, and she heard the echo of a woman's voice singing quietly to her new baby as she smiled, a halo of dark curls around her head:

 _V'la le bon vent, v'la le joli vent,  
V'la le bon vent, ma mie m'appelle,  
_  
"Oh fair wind, ah, lovely wind,  
Oh fair wind, my love she calls to me."  
Ariadne whispered to herself. Mal, she realised sadly. Mal singing to James, his tiny shape cradled against her chest as outside autumn fell in gusts and dead leaves. Season of the dead, a time for sad tales as much as winter is. But she's no Hermione, there was no mock trial and there will be no statue for Philipa to fall down before and weep to see breathing as flesh.   
 _  
V'la l'bon vent, v'la le joli vent,  
V'la l'bon vent, mon ami m'attend._

"Oh fair wind, ah pretty wind,  
Oh fair wind, my love he waits for me."  
Arthur's voice was soft in her ears, a ghost pair of hands on her shoulders and the impression of a kiss on her head. 

She uncurled from her chair and rose, the lights of Paris' night winking on outside her window as she watched. Arthur was quiet again. She drank her tea then padded through her silent apartment, trying not to give in to the comfort he was offering her as she fell into her bed and hoped for dreamless sleep.

\---


	3. Chapter 3

_**She dreams:**_  
They're sitting on a hillside overlooking a bay. She knows that this is Cornwall, the British coast in summertime. The sea is dark sapphire and the grass richly green. Arthur is lying next to her on a chequered rug, holding her hand.

"Are we dreaming?" She says quietly. He leans across and kisses her, an endless, drowsy kiss that makes her shiver.  
"Yes." He says, his face above hers. "I came here when I was younger, with someone I thought I loved. I thought it was perfect. When it ended, I swore I only ever wanted to share it with a person who I truly loved and wanted to be with. Now I'm here with you."

He kisses her again, she winds her hands into his hair and lets go, falling into him like eternity.

 _ **  
He dreams:**_  
They're sitting next to each other on a single bed in a neat, sunny bedroom with pale green walls that have been covered in sketches, plans and photographs. Stuffed toys loll on the top shelf of a crammed book case and in front of the huge window he can see a desk littered with paper, pens and craft materials. Below them he can hear two boys shouting to each other (her brothers,he knows their voices) cut short by the boom of her father barking "Behave!"

"This is my bedroom at home." She notes to him, pointlessly since she knows he knows that already. "I grew up here." He covers her hand where it's lying in her lap and she clasps it quietly. "Who are we now?" She asks him, staring into his eyes. "What are we? Can we live like this?"

"I am still me," he replies gently, "and you are still you, no matter what happens. We're together and we can go on."  
Her voice shakes. "All I did, all I tried to do, was try not to like you so much it didn't blind me. Try not to want you. And this is what it did to us! We're together, are we? Is that what you want?" He lets her sit silently for a few moments before he answers.

"You know that it is. And you know that I know that its what you want too."

"Not at any cost! It's too much! Damn you!" She jumps up and rakes her hands through her hair. "Why aren't you more angry about this? Why aren't you more scared?"

"You think I'm not?" He stands up, grabs her hands and forces her up to him. "You're inside my head too, Ariadne. You're not stupid enough to ignore the fact I'm furious and terrified about this. You think this is what I wanted? I wanted to take you for dinner and long walks and get to know you on your terms while you got to know me. I wanted you to tell me how to touch you and make you feel good, not know it before you'd even let me into your bed. I never wanted to know about your other lovers or to have you know about mine, but they're all in here. I never wanted us to share all the mean, nasty, cruel things that we've swept into our dark corners, _but we don't have a choice_." He's shaking her, the rage boiling out as she grips onto him hard enough to leave bruises. "You want me to be angry? You want me to be scared? Look inside me, Ariadne. Look and see what's there." 

Her mouth is suddenly on his, scorching like a brand as she delves into him. He falls back onto her childhood bed, frantically kissing her back, dipping into her mind and finding that at her heart he burns in her, a mixture of emotions around him that should terrify him.

But no. He refuses the fear. He refuses the anger. It's pointless to fight what you cannot defeat.

He plunges into the fire and lets it take him whole.  

\---

Ariadne woke up and rolled over so she was face down in her pillows. _Arthur._ She mumbled sadly.

Arthur blinked up at the ceiling, the soft fingers of morning creeping across it. _Ariadne_. He sighed, pressing one hand to his face.

~*~

Ariadne didn't show up to work the day after Hvid's extraction. When he tried to touch her mind she whispered back _*I'm fine*_ before resuming a grey blanket of hushed depression.

He knew she was angry and sad in one sticky, mushed together pit of emotions and that she could feel his own fury at being pushed into using her skills at Dom's insistence. He'd never wanted to leave him behind more than the moment they resurfaced in Hvid's suite and he realised that his friend had taken advantage of their accident to make the job a success, knowing that Arthur's first instinct would be to do as he asked rather than to understand that it might be too much, too soon. Oh, he'd apologised afterwards. He'd seen Ariadne was gone, seen Arthur's cold expression and perhaps then he'd known what the price must have been.

But Arthur knew that Cobb did what he did in ignorance. To the outside world it must seem like a wonderful toy to play with; indeed, Eames had started making a series of jokes about which one out of Ariadne and himself they could sack now, since they could both multitask. He had been in the middle of a superb (his word) monologue on how he would spend his share of the saved money when Cobb had finally shut him up with a single, sharp "Enough!" And sent him out for coffee.

"Is she alright?" Dom had sat down on the edge of his desk, arms folded and expression grave once Eames had slammed out of the door.

Arthur raised his head and let his face remain a studied blank, quelling the urge to yell _Call her yourself and find out! I'm not her goddamned keeper!_ "She's upset. And she's depressed. It's sinking in that this is for the rest of our lives. We'll never be separate again."

"And you?" His friend's eyes were pale blue and unwavering.

"I'm fine."

"Arthur, I've known you too long to let you get away with blowing smoke up my ass. It's been blindingly obvious since you met that you're infatuated with each other. " He held out one hand in Arthur's protesting face. "I may have been too wrapped up in my own problems to see it clearly at the time, but you are. Yet you kept a professional distance, for which you both should get credit. But once Fischer was dealt with, perhaps you should have done something about it. And I can't help wondering if the reason you held back is because of Mal and I's example."

"What?" Arthur spluttered.  "I am nothing like you and she is not Mal!"

Dom didn't flinch. "We were both professional extractors who found ourselves at the limits of what somnacin dreaming could provide.  We found ourselves in a situation so extreme we broke in it, despite everything we tried to do. You adored Mal, didn't you?"

Arthur's answering stare was furious. "She was like an older sister to me, you know that."

"And some part of you blamed me, I think, when you knew what I had done, when I couldn't stop her killing herself and you knew I had incepted her. And you looked at Ariadne, didn't you, and decided two dreamers together could only ever end the same way? Asking _'Is this real? Are we real?'_ That one day you might find yourself doing the same thing to her and you couldn't bear it. Better to hold back in silence than to burn, am I right?"

He stared Arthur down. "I am, aren't I? You denied yourself her because you thought  the time would come where you would be the one who ended up hurting her the most. You both did. And now you're in a situation like this, where you don't have  that luxury any more."

"So what are you saying? Go out and get her?" He threw his totem on the table, watching it roll and land.

"You don't need to. You already have each other. You need to stop acting as if the only way this can end is in pain and misery. This is reality, Arthur. It feels as wonderful as much as it hurts. For all that Mal and I caused each other hurt and grief, we loved and cared about each other to a point that makes me know it was all worthwhile. Do you want to live your life shut off from that?"  

He shook his die in his fingers, refusing to look into Dom's face. "She strong enough to do it and so are you." He added calmly, standing and smoothing out his immaculate black pants. "Trust her. Trust yourself."

\---

Ariadne was only half listening to her mother's voice over the phone. Outside her window Paris sulked under the early evening clouds, the wind refusing to die down and sending spirals of leaves past the glass. Cobb's words to Arthur were still floating around in both their minds: Arthur fidgeting with them, picking them up, putting them down and asking himself if Dom was right. She trying to let them sink in, wondering if she, if they, were strong enough like he'd said. 

In her head she turned over the possibility of telling her mother...what? _Hey mom, there was an accident and this man who I work with at this semi legal job I'm doing is now permanently linked to my brain and me into his_. No. _Hey, momma, look, you know you're worried I'm never going to find anyone, well guess what?_ No. _Maman, you remember me saying I work with some really nice people?_ **_No, no, no_**...She let her head rest on her knees as her mother's voice washed over her, a familiar link to a life that used to be hers.

"...and so the wedding is next month! Can you believe it?"

"Yeah."

"'Ne, are you listening to a word I've been saying about your brother?"

"Sorry maman, I've got a lot on my mind. What were you saying?"

"Oh baby, you're working too hard. Can't you get your boss to give you a vacation? Surely they don't need you all the time."

"I told you, I have the day off today. Things have been...difficult lately, that's all." She sighed and watched the river beneath her ripple by. Her mother paused, taking a soft breath in before she plunged on.

"Ariadne, you would tell me if it was too much for you, wouldn't you? You can come home any time you like, your father and I will always have a place for you here. I don't want this to make you sick or burn you out and there's no shame in admitting..."

"No, maman, I love my job and I'm not sick, it's just..." The words died on her lips.

"It's what? Ariadne, whatever it is you can tell me." _But I can't, I can't, you'd think I was crazy._

"...someone I work with, we, I mean I..." _How to sum up her and Arthur in a sentence? Respect, friendship, attraction, fear..._

"Are you pregnant?"

"No!"

Is he married?"

"No, maman, please..."

"Oh good lord, is it a woman?" Ariadne felt Arthur's faint laugh. Damn eavesdropper.

"Maman!" She snapped, "No!" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I like him and he likes me. A lot. A whole lot..."

"He wants to marry you!" Her mother's voice was a shrill squeak.

"No, no, no maman, no!" Ariadne felt her face crease in frustration.  "Just listen to me for a minute will you?"

"OK sweetheart, I'm sorry."

"We both like each other and we know each other really, really well. I've known him since day one and he's never, ever done anything less than be kind and considerate to me. But..."

"Ariadne," Her mother's voice was patient and slightly amused, "There's a man in your life who likes you as much as you like him? What's the problem, baby? Ask him on a date! This is the twenty first century, you don't have to wait for him make a move on you!"

"But, maman. I...what if things go wrong? Or I... What if I'm scared?" She heard the faint childish plea in her voice.

Her mother sighed and said calmly: "When you were a child, you were fearless, do you know that? You walked up to the world, looked it right in the eye and shouted at the top of your lungs. You knew what you wanted and you chased it down. When you fell, you cried a little then dusted yourself off and carried on."

"How does that have anything to do with this?" She scrubbed her face with her hand, regretting she'd said a word.

"It has to do with the fact that then you knew that the future was something you couldn't predict for certain, only something you could influence. You're second guessing yourself, baby. You don't know until you try, do you?"

"No, I guess not." She plucked at the carpet absently.

"Don't you now? You're not weak or silly, sweetheart, not silly enough to let something good pass you by, anyway. Ask him. If he likes you as much as you say, what can go wrong, hmm? Not a lot. And if it does, you'll manage. You know you can. You're my Ariadne, my bright, beautiful one, aren't you?" She smiled down the phone, as warm and close as if she were in the room, making Ariadne want to cry stupid, infantile tears.

"Thank you, mamie." She said, her throat thick and sore as the words came out.

"Any time, ma petite. Are you alright?"

Ariadne felt Arthur's concern echoing her mother's, then his careful touch trying to reassure her. She reached out hesitantly, accepting him with quiet thanks as she let him in. He felt calm within her, a quiet voice letting her know she wasn't alone, a gentle rocking like a boat on a soft wave or a crib soothing a child to sleep. She leant into him and let herself relax cautiously into his presence.  

"Oui, maman. I just miss you, that's all." 

"And I miss you too. But  you're going to be home for Cleon's wedding, aren't you?"

She let her mother's chatter wash over her again, listened to Arthur behind it all and tried to let herself remember how it felt to be fearless. 

\---  
 _ **  
She dreams:  
**_ They're in the dressing room of a tailor's store in Saville Row in London. Arthur is half dressed, his pants discarded on the floor behind them. He's holding her up against the wall, his mouth is on hers, his hands biting into her hips as he fills her so much she gasps at the sensation. He's smiling like sin and the downfall of angels. _*Well, you any way.*_ He tells her in reply as he pulls back, she whimpers in protest and he slides into her again.

Someone knocks on the door in a rapid beat. "Just a minute," Arthur grinds out, "my fiancée wants to make sure it fits perfectly." His mouth covers hers, and in the mirror next to them she can see the tangle of limbs they've become, a knot of two people winding into one as they carry on, the feeling burning brighter and brighter...

 ** _He dreams:_**  
Her old bed creaks when they move. _*Shh! My parents are just down the hall!*_ She smoothers his laugh in her kiss as he pushes against her, fighting the noise he wants to make at feeling her snug around him. _*Oh god, so good.*_ He keeps one hand on her ass, the other cups her breast as she slides one leg over his hip, lets her hands stroke his back and starts to rock into him, teasing him towards release as her mind unspools in a torrent of lust, _*Come to me. Oh please, come to me*_...

 _ **She dreams:  
**_ She's kneeling over his face, her body spread wide open and his breath is hot against her naked, wet pussy. His hands cup her behind and pull her down, her knees splaying so she's right over his mouth and his tongue is tasting her so eagerly it feels like a separate being, laving and rubbing and flicking and smoothing and delving into her, over and over again while she sprawls over his body, boneless with pleasure, until she feels her body start to give...

 _ **He dreams:**_  
She rubs her hands together until the lather is a cloud of white bubbles in her hand. She slaps them softly into his chest, then rubs soap over his nipples then down, over his ribs, smoothing his stomach, lower and lower, a wicked little grin on her face as she finally lets her slick hands wrap around his cock and cup his balls. Her hands massage him with a sure touch, one stroking, the other rolling and squeezing softly. _*Do you know what the best thing about this is? I know how to do this exactly the way you like it.*_ He lets his eyes close in a sigh of bliss, his body pressed into the wall of the shower cubicle as she leans against him, her hands firmer and her strokes harder, every inch of him in her grasp as he surrenders to...

 ** _She dreams:  
_** He rolls them over so she's astride him in a tumble of warm limbs and curls, her hips pumping into him with feral urgency as she devours his mouth. He catches her hand as she moves to touch herself, replacing her fingers with his own. _*I know how to do this the way you like it too.*_ He lets her ride him, hands on his shoulders as he rubs her clit, her voice grating and rough as she growls and grinds, her wetness slick on his skin as he touches her, as she works him as they both start begin to tense...

 _ **He dreams:**_  
She leans on the arm of the couch, her skirt pulled up high so she's naked to the waist. She looks over her shoulder at him and thinks firmly _*Like this.*_  
 _*Are you sure?*_ She rolls her hips and arches her back, regarding him evenly with lust stained eyes. Stupid question really, he knows she is. He always knows. 

His first thrust makes her throw her head back in a sigh that becomes a moan. She cants back into him, rubbing herself against him as he grasps her hips, twists his pelvis and pulls back, almost to until he's barely inside her, then returns. One of her hands slides underneath them and slips under their joined bodies, feeling him fucking her, rutting with her, making her want to scream as he leans down and his teeth bite into the base of her neck, marking her inside and out as she comes with a hoarse yell...

 _ **She dreams:**_  
He's sitting in an armchair, a lit cigarette curling streamers of smoke around him as he raises it to his lips, inhales and exhales in a soft cloud. In his other hand is a glass with a finger of 120 year old malt glinting in it. His face betrays only a hint of a smile as he sips, the ice chiming in the silent room. "They say too much of a good thing is wonderful. Why don't you show me if that's true." She watches him inhale, exhale and sip before he continues. "Strip. Slowly. I want to enjoy looking at you before I enjoy having you." _*And I will.*_ His eyes darken and travel over her as if she's already naked. __

 __She shakes down her hair, her skin heating with desire, slides her hands over her chest and starts to unbutton her shirt. _*Come to me.*_ His voice is soft in her mind. She smiles as each fastening loosens under her hands. _*Come and be mine.*_

 _ **He dreams:**_  
She unbuttons him too fast for him to stop her, her hands pull him free and her head is in his lap before he can protest in any way. She wraps her lips around him and he tastes salt soft on her tongue as she sucks, filling her mouth with him, feeling him throb against her tongue as his hands fumble in her hair. He's thinking _he should stop her, he should, oh god he should, this is the back row of a movie theater and not exactly the most private or discreet.._.but she doesn't stop, her tongue swiping over the head of his cock before she encloses him in her mouth again, letting him press into her soft palate then letting go to tease into the small, leaking slit as she holds him in her hand, pumping him in her fist as she drops down, over and over until he...

\---

The bang of someone's fist against her front door threw Ariadne into consciousness. Three hard thumps, then a pause, then three more. She struggled out of her bed, barely noticing her alarm's burning red digits showing 3.20am: It was dark, which meant it was early which meant her neighbours would be furious if she didn't shut up whoever the hell was outside her apartment.

Her brain was still foggy from her dreams, a potent mix of sex and Arthur that blurred into a drunken spiral of interlocking mouths, limbs and sexes, enough that she didn't really notice the ache in her hand as she staggered to the door, bleary eyed and lust addled, didn't really pay attention to the feeling that Arthur was overwhelmed, leaning on a hard, cold surface and pleading with her to... _*Ariadne, open the damn door!*_

 _Oh shit._ He was outside her door, broadcasting want, need, lust and desire; a mirror of herself separated by only a sheet of wood.  
 _  
*I can hear you, in all senses of the word. Open this door before I break it down!*_ He hit it three more times. _*Please, Ariadne. I'm freezing out here.*_

She peeked- waking up from a turmoil of dreams, feeling her asking him to come to her, checking his totem, a frantic drive in his nightclothes and a trenchcoat... _*You came here in your pyjamas?*_ His hands lay flat on the surface between them, his eyes closed.

 _*You called me.*_

Ariadne slid back the bolt cautiously, took off the chain and opened her front door. Arthur stood in her hallway, his coat open to show a t shirt and a pair of loose dark pants, his hair sleep mussed and his face drawn tight in anxious lines over all the pure physical tension inside him.

 _*You called me.*_ She replied, letting her eyes meet his as she frowned. _*I heard you, you said **'Come and...** * _ He finished for her _*. **.be mine** '. And you said **'Oh please...** *_ Her thought overlapped his _*... **come to me**.' * _

 __She took a deep breath, in and out. _No way back, only forwards_. She swallowed then extended her hand to him. _*We're strong enough for this. I know we are.*_ He reached out and carefully took hold, his hand cold and angular in hers. __

 _*This isn't a magic cure, you know that.*_ Her anxiety bubbled up behind the desire as his grip tightened over hers.

 _*This is reality. Nothing is that simple. But I want to be with you. And you want to be with me. This is where we begin.*_

\---

She led him into her apartment, letting him shut and bolt the door.

She led him down the corridor and through the open door of her bedroom.

She led him to her bed, the covers still rucked and thrown any which way.

She stopped and turned so she was facing him, no more than a hand's span separating them.

In the darkness of her room his eyes glinted softly with the reflections of the lights of the city beyond. She didn't speak, she didn't touch him even. Instead she slowly, deliberately pulled her tank top over her head in a soft rasp of cotton, inching it carefully up her body before letting it drop to the floor in a sigh of fabric. Then she equally slowly eased down her pyjama pants, slipping them calmly down her thighs, past her knees to her ankles before kicking them to one side so she was naked in front of him. She could hear his breathing, short and fractured, as he took her in; examining, enjoying, every inch of her in the dim light as she stood there, a half smile on her lips, waiting for him to follow. For all that they were both nervous, there was a current of excitement and anticipation crackling through the air, so potent she could almost smell it and setting her skin alive with minute shivers.

Arthur pulled his t shirt up by the hem, up over his torso then let it fall through his fingers on top of her discarded clothes. He kept his eyes on hers as she drank him in. None of his neatly tailored shirts and vests had been adequate preparation for this, the body underneath. He hooked his thumbs carefully into the waistband of his pants and let them drop as carefully and slowly as she had hers, stepping them out of his way before he straightened up so she could see him, all of him. In the silence and the dim room, breathing in time, she felt him, so desperate to touch and be touched, his arousal pouring off him even as hers cascaded through her, each one of them amplifying the other until she could hardly tell where she stopped and he started. And instead of scaring either of them it felt safe, almost natural as breathing.

 _*Touch.*_ The thought came from them both. _*Can I?*  *Please.*  
_  
She carefully put out one hand, laying it on his stomach. He jumped ever so fractionally under her fingers as she laid them there, then relaxed as she smoothed over the planes of his chest, up to his shoulders and neck to catch the edge of his hair where it curled at the back of his skull, then across his jaw until she was holding his face in one hand. _*You're lovely.*_ She let it come through clearly and honestly as he smiled under her hand. _*Don't I have to say that?*_  
 _  
*You're a smart man. You'll think up something else.*_ He sighed and one hand met her skin, copying her previous motions with delicate accuracy. The callouses at the base of his fingers rasped slightly where they passed over her, a whisper of friction as he swept over each breast, over the cords of her neck and under her ear to cradle the base of her skull.  
 _  
*Can you feel that? I can feel...*_ He dragged at the sensation _*I can feel what it feels like for you to touch me. I feel...*_ The backlash made her close her eyes and give a strangled moan; everything she felt coming back to her through him, warm, smooth, the catch of stubble in her palm, all her own feelings hitting her in a rush as he became the lens, and behind it her, the soft weight of her hair, the curve of her head pressing into his hand, the thrill of her naked form revealed to him so he could touch it, admiration, liking, desire, possessive lust coming up and out until she almost couldn't stand it. "Oh god, that's incredible." She whispered. "We're barely touching each other. I think this might actually kill me."   
 _  
*But what a way to go. I wouldn't it mind at all.*_ He was amused, but sincerity unpinned his thoughtas it came to her. _*And neither would you.*_  His bent down so his face was level to her upturned one. _*Besides, it would only be a little death. And you're no delicate flower that can't survive it.*  
_  
She pulled him closer, until they were no more than a hair's breadth apart.  _*No. And you're not cursed to be the one who destroys me either.*_ His mouth met hers, gently at first as his lips explored the curve and press of them then ,as her other hand slid over his hip pressing him into her so they were skin to skin, with increasing hunger. 

His other hand latched on to the rise of her ribs, inching up, further and further until he hit the swell of her breast. His fingers brushed the firm nipple and a dart of feeling shot through her, knocking them both _*Oh god, *_ He slurred, gently moulding the flesh in his hand, _*Oh god, is this how good it feels to have your breasts touched?*_   She leant forward a little and licked the same spot on him, feeling him hiss and work her harder in response even as she felt the whisper of her rough laps on her own skin. She flattened her hands on his shoulders, pulling him to her mouth and working each point with her tongue, suckling and nipping as each of her own nerves flared, Arthur stroking and teasing both her breasts in time as he gasped and his thoughts spiralled as incoherently as hers, the shake of arousal making their knees weak and joints liquid.  
 _  
*We should lie down.*_ He pinched her right nipple so hard she squeaked out loud and let go off his, nearly sending them both to the floor. _*There's so many things I want to do.*_ His imagination rippled over tasting her, touching her, hearing her even as hers replied in kind. _*And I don't think I can stand upright for much longer.*_

Ariadne laughed softly. "All the blood going somewhere?"

"You know it has. You knew it had before you opened your front door. That's why your clit feels so hard, right? That's why you feel like your pussy is throbbing..." His hand slid between her thighs and she groaned as he cupped her. _*Touch me.*_ She grasped him carefully, and under her hand felt his cock slick with drips of precome _*I think that's happening because you're getting so wet.*_ One finger parted her and swiped at the liquid around her sex, making her tilt her hips into his hand and slide her hand over him to stroke the head with her thumb, the soft flow of drops gathering under her touch and letting her trace smooth circles over him, making her ache even harder and him pant. _*OK, we have to lie down.*_ She managed as he kissed her again, his tongue opening her mouth and sliding over hers. 

They let go of each other reluctantly and she pushed him gently back, letting him sprawl over her mattress. _*Come here.*_ He reached out as she crawled up the bed next to him, his intentions clear in her mind as she went, a smile curving over her face as she knelt carefully above his shoulders and leant forward so she was stretched over him. His hands slid over her thighs, a whisper of a touch as he reached her ass and pulled her down over his mouth. She choked back a yelp as his tongue hit pay dirt, his hands opening her wider and his breath hot on her skin. Ariadne dug her fingers into his stomach as he hummed and lapped, desperately trying not to let the sensation overcome her as she managed to grasp his cock and work it gently in time to his touch.

Arthur twisted under her, the touch of her hand replaying into her own body as he kept up his ministrations. She swore as three fingers slipped into her at once, making her tighten and pulse and him surge under her hand. She scrabbled desperately at the threads of her thoughts, but she was coming apart, too soon and _she wanted...she wanted...Oh god_. She pitched forward urgently and closed her mouth over him, the taste of all his moisture flooding her mouth as she sucked, one hand firmly over the base of him her tongue wrapping around him and teasing the sensitive skin. "Oh shit," She felt him exhale as he let his head drop back, his fingers still pressing in and out. _*Ohshitohshitohshit*_ he was frantic in her head as he thrust up into her, finally managing to seal his mouth over her clit and sucking it as hard as he could.

She wanted to scream: it was as if there were two mouths on her, each one sucking and taunting as she began to shake with her orgasm. Arthur's mind was a blur, his body trying to blend into hers as he tensed, as she clamped down, breath rasping over skin as they began to come. Ariadne felt herself grind into his mouth, then as he scraped her with his teeth a hot rush poured out of her, his come filling her mouth then again as she tightened and spasmed once more. _*Oh god. I can't stop, I can't*_ she sucked down in an messy breathless gasp as he brought a third release from her and an another broke from his body, making them both slump bonelessly into each other, panting and sweaty.

 _*What the hell was that?*_   He managed after a minute.  
 _  
*I'm a woman. I have the capacity for more than one orgasm.*_ She let her head loll on his stomach as it rose and fell.  
 _  
*But I'm a man and I shouldn't.*_ His tone was confused. __

 _*I guess that's no longer true. It must be like the stimuli test, where we both feel and react in synch. Any way, are you complaining? There may be more of them, but they're smaller, so you don't go all at once.*_ She ran one hand down his leg. _*God, do you always feel this tired afterwards?*_  
 _  
*Refractory period.*_ He put one hand over her and she twitched away, the feeling too sharp and sudden. _*It seems you got that end of the bargain.*_ He chuckled softly. _*There are other things we can do while we wait.*_ He rolled her off him carefully and pulled her up so they were face to face. _*So, you like being kissed and I like kissing you.*_ She wrapped her arms around his neck and twisted her fingers into his hair. _*Why don't we start there?*_

 __\---

Kissing became touching. Touching became teasing. Teasing became full blown foreplay that span out into a soft, almost never ending, exploration of each other's bodies. Four hands, two mouths and a tangle of limbs in space as they both discovered how they could feel each other.

Arthur let her spend an age on his neck, teasing out the tiny spots that made him crackle and curse under her lips, each one committed to her memory as well as her own body.

Ariadne lay back in her pillows as he spent an hour, maybe even two, she could hardly tell how time was passing, suckling and stroking her breasts. _*Not too small*_ He had caught her impression of herself and flicked it away. _*Dainty. Sensitive,*_ his tongue abraded one nipple as he flicked the other with an idle thumb, _*Gorgeous. Like the rest of you.*_ She arched up as he nipped her, gasping and fumbling at the sheets.

She traced over every scar on his back, the memory of each one surfacing as she touched them, blessing them with a flurry of kisses. _Bullet, bullet, knife wound, falling down concrete steps, Eames throwing them through a window...*Eames threw you through a window?*_

 _*We were fighting over something.*_ She followed the memory back _: A tall woman with white blonde hair (Olivia), a hotel room in Bonn, her voice thick with desire as she pleaded with them to... *Stop*_ He untangled himself and turned over to face her. _*Not now. That's the past.*_

 _*It's alright. I never thought you were a monk before you met me.*_ Ariadne knitted their fingers together and smiled smugly. _*Besides, you like me more.*_ She grinned in triumph when he laughed at her jubilant voice.  
 _  
*I do.*_ He freed one hand and combed it through her hair. _*But then, you like me more than Bastian and Philip and Joseph and Carter and...*_ She grabbed his head and kissed him. _*If you're trying to shut me up that won't work, you know.*_ His hands dawdled lower.  
 _  
*I thought it was worth a shot.*_

Arthur groaned out loud and rested his forehead on hers. "Trust you to remember that."

"As if you don't." Ariadne stole his mouth again. 

 _*It wasn't my finest moment.*_ He urged her on top of him, hands grasping at her sides, her behind and her thighs as she wriggled into place and sat up.

 _*Make it up to me then.*_ She rubbed herself against him, the twinned heat sparking in her as he stiffened, rolling his head back so she could lick his neck and his hands settling on her breasts again. _*With pleasure.*_ He managed as his mind tumbled into a molten mass with hers.

 _*Can we?* *I want to* *Please* *Yes*_

 __She rose up, one hand working him with a firm, squeezing stroke as she leant over and let him kiss her. The slip of her fingers made her start to tingle, the heavy beat of her pulse dropping into her abdomen as he pushed into her grasp. One finger found her and brushed over her clit, trailing her wetness down as he dipped into her, circling and retreating until she was making tiny mewls of delight.

 _*Now? *Now*_

 __Ariadne guided him against her, then felt him sink in, a smooth motion that brought their hips together as she closed over him. The sensation was...she could hardly describe it, a fullness that was also a tense embrace, a solidity edged with softness, a warm squeeze that gave way to a feeling of being open, completely. Her head dropped back as she grabbed Arthur's thighs, her single thought a breathless dive as she tried to move, every nerve coming to life as he pushed back and held her in their motion with sweating, biting fingers.

 _*Is this how it feels?* *It is, oh god it is.* *Don't stop. *I don't want to.* *Fuckfuckfuckfuck* *Ariadne.* *Arthur.*_ _  
_  
She was overloading, the him into her into him into her spiralling at dizzying speed. He groaned, thrusting up to her and she gasped, coming down to engulf him. Her hands scratched at his chest and the needles of pleasure prickled on her skin. His fingers slid over her clit and he swore, bucking into her harder and harder as she flung herself down. The tension coiling every muscle up tight, tighter, too tight then she was coming, in a hot downwards rushing wet spasm; making her scream, properly scream his name as if he couldn't hear her already, all the time, a desperate keening wail that he met with one of his own, bending them both back in a pulse release, pulse release of bodies coming undone.

\---  
She fell on top of him this time, every limb twitching and loose. _*Twice. Again.*_ She panted and stroked his jaw, feeling the rumble of his giggle start underneath her and the languid air of satisfaction. _*Oh for God's sake, Arthur. I know what you're thinking, you know. Lying there thinking_ **Who's the man? I'm the man!** _Is as bad as saying it out loud.*_   He continued to snuffle and chuckle into her hair as he hung onto her, feeling her offence as a veneer. _*Fine, but if you do this every time you're never getting any again.*_

 _*Liar.*_ He grabbed at the edge of her quilt and dragged it over them where they lay. _*God, I'm exhausted. Damn multiple orgasms.*_ He sniggered again.

 _*Damn refractory period.*_ She yawned and settled on top of him more comfortably, pressing her face into his neck as he relaxed under her, their breathing slowing into the shared pattern of dreamers.

\---

 **  
_They sleep._   
**

~*~

Arthur woke up to hear his phone bleating from inside the pocket of his coat and Ariadne's soft, sudden waking inhale. The sun was high and Paris basking in a beautiful autumn dayoutside the bedroom window, crisp and bright with promise. _*It's mine.*_ He stroked her back as she snuggled against him.  
 _  
*Don't get it, you're nice and warm.*_ Her hands snaked over him and hung on.

"It's Dom, you know it is. He's probably wondering where we are."  She thought various unkind things about him, Cobb and extraction as he let go and left her bed. _*Ariadne, don't. He's just concerned.*_

"Arthur."

"Good morning. How are you?" He glanced at Ariadne, who was regarding him balefully from the bed.

"Very well. We both are, thank you." He heard Dom's laugh.

"Not coming in today, then?" Ariadne perked up at that, then caught Arthur thinking _they really should..._ She sat up, rose to her knees with the quilt clutched to her then very slowly, a wicked grin gracing her features, began to let it slip down.

"I...err...no. I don't think so." The quilt was low enough to see the tops of her breasts, then the edges of her nipples, then...he swallowed. "Perhaps tomorrow." _*Oh Arthur,*_ She sighed, _*Come back to bed.*  
_  
"...Tomorrow's Saturday, Arthur." He could almost see him shaking his head. Then Ariadne let go of the edge of the quilt and suddenly he really didn't want to carry on their conversation any longer.   _  
_  
"Monday then. Sorry, I have to go. I'll talk soon." He dropped his phone on top of his clothes and went back to the edge of the bed. _*Don't do that.*_ He admonished, as she kept up her smile.  
 _*Why?*_  
 _*Since it only makes me want to do this...*_ He reached out, toppling them both over and back into the pile of bed clothes as Ariadne laughed in unabashed delight.

  
~*~

 _Epilogue: Paris, Spring_  
  
Ariadne's hand lay in his, a silly smile starting on the edge of her mouth. Inside her mind she was laughing, a bubble of joy that enclosed him as he spoke. _*Stop that, I'm trying to concentrate.*_

Her eyes danced with suppressed glee and she mentally stuck out her tongue at him. _*Bitch.*_ He replied fondly.  
 _  
*Tight ass*_  
 _  
*Minx*_  
 _  
*Jerk*_

He paused to let her speak, her voice clear as she repeated the formula, not stumbling or hesitating for a second. Behind him he could feel Cobb's dark gaze, Eames' sardonic one (he'd all but killed him with a look when he coughed at a crucial moment, the bastard, then muttered "Sorry, lump in my throat.") The faint snuffle of Ariadne's mother, hanging on to her father, who'd shown up in his dress uniform and managed to be surprised when Arthur wasn't the least bit intimidated, and the silent presence of her two tall, dark brothers. His own mother, sighing like a furnace in time with his sister, although she was possibly just relieved not to have been forced into floor length satin and a chignon. And his father, arms folded stolidly over his chest, approval written large on his features. But they may as well have been ghosts on the water, since all he could see at this moment was her, the grin blossoming across her face.  

 _*I believe*_ , She was arch _*the right word for me now is 'wife'*_

 _*God, you're insufferable.*_

 _*And so are you, especially when we both have PMS. But we get by.*_ She smiled as he kissed her; as their witnesses applauded; as Eames whooped and whistled and her mother burst into full blown sobs bisected with fractured French expressions of joy. 

It hadn't been easy, Arthur admitted to himself.  In fact, if anything, it had been worse than a regular relationship because there was no escape from each other. Physical distance stopped mattering after three weeks, as Hobbes had predicted, and some days, still, the shock of hearing how judgemental, how cruel they could both be would momentarily send them both recoiling in disgust and distaste.

(Not to mention the dreaded one week in four when they were both afflicted by Ariadne's menses, much to Eames' amusement. "My God Arthur, I've never seen anyone eat a chocolate bar that fast before." He had remarked casually the first time it happened, only to be rewarded with a face full of invective and curse words that turned him white, until Ariadne had rushed over and started to rub Arthur's back, trying to soothe him. __

_*I'm the one **actually having** my period, you know. And you've been shot, stabbed, blown up, any number of more painful things than this.*_ She had remarked sourly.

 _*Yes, but you're used to it.*_ He had half moaned as her fingers smoothed over his lower spine.  
 _  
*I don't think anyone gets used to it. And at least you're not crying at puppies and babies yet.*_ She had sniggered at his horror. _*And you're looking after me later, do you hear? Take some Tylenol with a cup of coffee and try to move around a little, it'll help.*_

 __"Blimey, sympathy periods." Eames had muttered when she explained to him. "I can't wait for you to have children. Arthur in labour is going to be hilarious." Which had earned him a wadded up paper ball to the back of the head from Arthur's direction.)

  
She took his arm, leaning into his side as they sauntered through the crowd, cheerful smiles and flurries of confetti from all sides.

 _*We didn't really have to do this, you know.*_ She smiled up at him. _*This doesn't mean we're going to be happy ever after.*_

 _*No. But...*_ He picked a pink paper heart out of her hair, _*I wanted everyone else to know I was with you because I could be, not because I had to. Besides, I hear wedding nights are fun.*_ He raised his eyebrows at her and gave her a lopsided smile.  
 _  
*It's worth a shot, right?*_ She laughed as he kissed her again. __

 _*Yeah. Definitely.*_ He hung onto her arm, relishing the small weight and warmth of her, as they stepped out into the weak sunshine. __

 __~*~ __

 __Let me tell you the truth about life, the universe and everything. It's so simple it will make you cry: We are all connected. Donne said it far better than me- "No man is an island." We are none of us unbound by the ties of affection, no matter who they lead back to, we are none of us alone.

And in all my laps around this yellow dwarf star, I've only learned one other thing that makes the towering vastness of this world any better, and that's that we find what we seek: Love is like death, it's everywhere if you go looking for it. We are a people capable of terrible acts, but we also have it in us to dance to the harmonies of the heavens. Seek happiness in the moments that you have it, since you can't hold back tomorrow or reclaim yesterday. And hold on, because you are stronger than you know.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN's  
> \- The Zener Card test is a well established method of testing for Psi ability (it can be seen famously at the beginning of _Ghostbusters_ being used by Peter Venkmann.) The stimuli test is more commonly used on stroke patients to assess the peripheral nervous system, so I did make that one up.
> 
> The convention of enclosing telepathic communication in asterisks is taken from Wendy Pini's _Elfquest_ graphic novels.
> 
> Dr. Hobbes is named after Hobbes the tiger in _Calvin and Hobbes_.
> 
> The neuroanatomy mentioned is broadly accurate, although to be fair a lot of neurological research is still in comparative infancy compared to our understanding of, say, the kidney or the lungs. The action of Somancin is based on the fact that _-nacin_ appended on a chemical compound indicates that it's action is as an [anticholergenic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticholinergic) (i.e. it inhibits the absorption of [acetylcholine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholine)) Since one of the actions of ACl is to increase awareness, it makes linguistic sense that the principal action of Somnacin should be there, and anticholergenics are used to treat insomnia and as sedation during surgery. However it does kind of collapse when you find out [ACl levels in the brain actually rise during dreaming.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1477541) The other actions are as seen in chemical measurements taken during human REM from serum blood samples, as found on Medline.
> 
> Ariadne's outer mindscape and the line "Knock and The Door Will Open!" come from the film _Labyrinth_.
> 
> The name Hvid, character basis and the view of Copenhagen are inspired respectfully by Peter Høeg's incredible novel _Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow_.
> 
> Arthur's dream of Cornwall is based on the beach and cliffs at The Lizard Point.
> 
> The quote "No man is an island..." comes from[ the poem of the same name](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island/) by John Donne.
> 
> "Love is like death..." is an interpretation of a line from Jeanette Winterson's novel _The Powerbook._
> 
> I'd like to extend my thanks to [](http://dream-bigger20.livejournal.com/profile)[**dream_bigger20**](http://dream-bigger20.livejournal.com/) and [](http://elliesmeow.livejournal.com/profile)[**elliesmeow**](http://elliesmeow.livejournal.com/) for holding my hand and pep talking me to the end of this. This would probably not exist were it not for you both. My thanks and my love, for all they're both worth, to you both. (Also to [](http://nami86.livejournal.com/profile)[**nami86**](http://nami86.livejournal.com/) for correcting my French in such a polite and gentle way and [](http://cunning-croft.livejournal.com/profile)[**cunning_croft**](http://cunning-croft.livejournal.com/) for teaching me my first word of Danish.)


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